


A New Hope

by WonderstruckSwan



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, AU, Alternative Season 7, Angst, F/F, F/M, Gen, Not Rumple Friendly, Post S6, gideon is the only decent stiltskin, slight canon divergance, the relationships in tags are the main ones bc all the kids have relationships with each other, will be explained in the notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-08-19 12:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16534163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderstruckSwan/pseuds/WonderstruckSwan
Summary: They thought nothing could ever happen again. They thought those epic battle between good and evil were just bedtime stories now.But a new threat emerges in Storybrooke. With the heroes of old under a curse, Hope, Robin, Alexandra, Lucas, Gideon, Philip and Melody band together with Henry, former author, to defeat an unseen evil.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *takes in deep breath* this is happening, kiddos. it's happening. oh my god i'm doing this.  
> So two slight alterations to canon:  
> Rumple died in the season 6 finale and afterwards, Belle moved in with Emma and Killian.  
> Emma's younger brother is called Lucas, after Ruby and Granny Lucas.  
> Note: if you are a big Rumple fan, this fic may not be for you.

Sixteen years passed since the final battle. Sixteen years since Emma defeated the Black Fairy for good and chased all darkness out of the realms. Sixteen years and they hadn’t seen a single villain attack, not one dared to darken Storybrooke’s doorstep. They weren’t sure if villains even existed anymore or if they simply knew better than to cross Emma Swan again. In any case, the new generation grew up with their parent’s adventures as fanciful tales, something to listen to, and when they grew older, read from on a dark night, under the covers or on the armchair on their parent’s lap, hearing how each and every one of their parents played a part in defeating some of the most dastardly villains known to the realms. And for some, when they grew old enough, hearing how their parents began on the wrong path and found themselves again.

But not once were they ever in true danger. The only swords they knew were the wooden ones they kept in sheds, the magical ones only knew mere parlour tricks to impress friends, the only battle they had ever fought were over TV remotes and bedtimes. They were the first generation in Storybrooke to read about the Snow White and the Evil Queen and Captain Hook and the Wicked Witch the way the rest of the Land Without Magic did; as stories.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fifteen year old Hope stretches out on the sofa in her living room, her white school-regulated school shirt with the top button undone and tie lying on the floor of her bedroom, her feet just touching the end of the sofa and rubbing together softly. White headphones cover her ears as she keeps her eyes on her tablet, mindlessly switching between apps, checking schoolmate’s and friend’s Instagram posts and Snapchats as school is finally let out for summer and she feels like she can breathe again after a year in the harsh world of high school, all the while her father cooks some pasta dish he found online in the kitchen, an old pop CD plays in the background, to which her mother sings along, _“you’ve got that James Dean daydream look in your eye”_ and the sun sets on another day in Storybrooke, painting the sky outside her window pink.

She switches to YouTube, looking for some funny cat video or mindless entertainment that she can happily numb her mind on while waiting for dinner. She scrolls through her recommendations-pop music video, a trailer for a new TV show she’ll definitely watch when September comes, music video, trailer for a big action blockbuster and….. She stops scrolling when she sees her half-brother’s face on a twenty minute video documenting a recent interview about his best selling book which was “loosely” (to be honest, loosely was a stretch, given how all he really did was change their names) based on the lives of her grandparents and mother.

She knows better than to tap on the video of her much-more-famous brother. It’s not that she hates him; the opposite in fact, but there’s something unsettling to her about her older brother being a bestselling author, director of two major films and… Well, a legend amongst the locals of Storybrooke and the other realms. So she knows better than to continue watching his endless panels and interviews. At least, that’s what she tells herself while tapping on the icon and watching his most recent interview with some gossip site.

“And we’re here with Henry Swan, director of the live-action Tangled and of Avengers 8, and of course, author of the best-selling novel _Happy Endings_ ,” the tiny blonde interviewer opens. Henry sits on a bright purple stool at her table, smiling shyly, drumming his fingers on the table. He was never one for a lot of publicity. “So, Henry, your book has been on the New York Time’s best seller list for weeks, and people are calling you the new JK Rowling. How do you cope with all this newfound fame?”

“It’s weird, it’s really weird,” he admits. “I mean it’s really humbling meeting fans and getting to know them and knowing how my book affected them and helped them believe in their own happy ending. And of course my family’s always there to help out if things get too crazy.”

“You mentioned the fans, and you know that your book has so many devoted fans and they interpret the book in so many different ways,” the interviewer asks, and she can see Henry tense. Hope stifles a laugh; she knows exactly what’s coming and her brother’s reactions are always priceless. “And a lot of fans have latched onto the idea of a relationship between Emily Dove and Queen Reina…”

“I know, I’ve met with a lot of people who um… ‘ship’? Is that the term?” Henry asks, his cheeks flushing red. “I’ve met a lot of ‘Evil Dove’ fans and… I mean I do think it’s awesome that they saw something with those two, but I don’t think that’s the route I want to take with Emily and Reina.” Hope nods. She doesn’t know who would have a bigger heart attack; her mother or Regina.

“And in the last book, we did see Emily have a tiny spark with Sheriff Grant, before you so brutally killed him.”

“Ah yes, I would love to apologise to the Gremily shippers for that,” he chuckled. “I know I broke a lot of hearts there. I have had a few angry people in my Twitter mentions.”

“Yeah, count mine in there!” the interviewer tells him. “So… is there any chance for Emily to have romance in the future?”

“Well…. See I don’t know how to answer this without spoiling it,” he answers. “I can say that someone might be catching Emily’s eye in the next book. But he will have to put in a lot of work to win her heart.”

“Now, is there anything you can reveal for book two?” Henry laughs, wriggling in his seat.

“Um, okay,” he begins. “I can reveal that there will be a new, really important character coming in, based on a famous literary villain, but my version has a heart of gold underneath it all. And... Emily’s going to be struggling to connect with her parents.”

“I imagine being the daughter of Cinderella and Prince Charming is difficult for her.”

“Yeah, I mean her parents being fairy-tale characters is one of the big roadblocks for her in terms of their relationship, but Emily also comes with a lot of baggage that her parents struggle with.”

Hope feels a slap on her legs and looks up to see her mother, the real one, not the character from Henry’s book, leaning on the sofa, smiling softly at her. Hope moves her legs, turning so that her back is against the back of the sofa and her feet are perched on the edge with her knees propping up her tablet. Emma sits down next to her, scrolling through some article on her phone. A lot of the time, Hope struggles to see the Saviour she read about, especially now, with her hair tied up in a bun, leather jacket discarded after coming in from work, pale blue jeans and white t-shirt and kitten socks. All she sees is her mum. Her funny, sarcastic, loving mom.

“What are you watching, Cygnet?” she asks. “Or is this a ‘mom can’t see it’ scenario.” Hope shakes her head and turns her tablet around to show her mother, who smiles at the image of Henry on the screen. “I’m happy that Henry’s happy and all but…. I miss having him around here.”

“Me too,” Hope says, but she knows it isn’t the same. She was four when Henry went to college in Seattle, ten when he directed his first movie and moved out to L.A. permanently. For her, seeing Henry over regular Skype calls and Christmases and birthdays is normal. “Have you seen this interview?”

“No, why?”

“Have you seen any interviews?”

“A couple,” Emma answers, raising an eyebrow. Hope raises one back but decides not to ask if she is aware of the “Regal Dove” shippers.

 “Funny little kid,” Emma says, handing her back her tablet. Hope swipes away Henry’s interview-she can always watch it later-and switches back to Instagram, showing her mother the occasional meme that was too funny not to share, and calling her dad in to show him the ones that she didn’t appreciate. Who knew a 300 year old pirate raised in the 13th century had a better taste in memes than her 21st century mother?

The front door opens, and Hope turns to see her aunt Belle and Gideon entering, Belle looking stylish as ever in a red miniskirt and white shirt, Gideon behind her, the only one in the entirely of Storybrooke High who wore the uniform the way it was meant to be; shirt buttoned up, tie straight and jumper on even in the summer.

Ever since Rumpelstiltskin died in the Final Battle, and Gideon reverted to a baby again, erasing his memories of his time as the Black Fairy’s puppet, Emma and Killian invited them to come live with them, understanding that the empty apartment she formerly shared with her husband would feel too imposing. Belle had been insistent that it was only a temporary thing and she’d be gone once she found her own place, but sixteen years later and she Gideon are still here. Their Victorian house is the only home Gideon has ever known, his daily routine includes Emma wishing him good morning, Killian making him breakfast and Hope racing hi to the bathroom and walking to school with him, and Belle thinks it would be a shame to break it. And she’d by lying if she said she’d ever want to leave.

“Hey guys,” Emma greets.

“Hi,” Belle replies. “We went out for ice cream to celebrate summer break.”

“What did you get?” Hope asks Gideon.

“Chocolate vanilla swirl,” Gideon replies. Hope makes a gun with her finger and clicks her tongue and Gideon responds in the same way. She’s grown up with Gideon, and in all but blood, he’s her brother. And they’re different in a lot of ways; he’s calm where she’s restless, quiet where she is less so, studious where she can improve. And yet, they fit almost perfectly.

“You want to hang out?” she asks him, wriggling around so she can look at him. He’s already settled himself in the armchair, back straight and legs crossed, another contrast between him and Hope, and he pulls a book out of his backpack, wincing slightly.

“Sorry, Hope,” he says. “I’ve got a hot date with a magical detective.”

“Boo!” she protests, all in good fun. Emma and Belle share a fond glance over Hope’s head and Emma danced her fingers on Hope’s back, letting herself get her fingers tangled in her red curls.

“Hopefully that ice cream won’t put you off your dinner,” Killian calls from the kitchen, stepping into the living room with a white dishtowel slung over his shoulder.

“Nothing could do that with your cooking, babe,” Emma tells him.

“Which smells amazing,” Belle adds, strolling into the kitchen. “What are you making tonight?”

In the kitchen, Killian rambles on to Belle about their dinner plans while Emma listens with a smile, a look at Hope and stifled giggle, Gideon continues reading, lost to the entire world, and Hope puts her headphones back on and goes back to YouTube.

As far as Hope, or anyone, know they’ll go on like that for the rest of the summer.

                                                                                                *****

Not too far from the Swan-Jones-French household, a small, comfortable white house sat in the middle of the street with a carefully kept front lawn and trimmed rose bushes, the home of Cinderella and Prince Thomas. And of course, their teenage daughter Alexandra.

In Alex’s room, she and her girlfriend Robin sit on her bed, an old vinyl from decades ago playing in the background. Alex rubs her nose softly against Robin’s and it’s enough to make her toes curl and her body tingle as she pushes forward and presses her lips against Alex’s, dry and soft and innocent but thrilling all the same. She giggles against her lips and kisses her again, tasting the orange flavour of Alex’s lip balm.

Alex falls back onto the pillow, leaving Robin kneeling above her, chewing her lip with a bright smile. Alex starts giggling at nothing in particular, and Robin starts soon after, falling on her back beside Alex, looking up at her stained white ceiling.

“What are we going to do all summer?” Robin asks casually, crossing her ankles. Alex shrugs and lets her hand fall next to Robin’s. “We can go to the beach.”

“Read all those books Gideon says we should.”

“Take that big trip to New York we’ve always wanted,” Robin suggest, half serious. Alex turns to look at her, pink lips in a smile.

“Possibly,” she says while their fingers link together. “I can drive.”

“We can see the Empire State building,” Robin continues. “And the Statue of Liberty. And Broadway!” Alex laughs and turns onto her side, propping her head up on her fist. She pokes Robin’s cheek gently with her fingertip and Robin mimes trying to eat her. “Seriously, we could do this.”

“I mean, I am onboard, but you are aware that New York is seven hours in a car?” Alex asks, making her fingers dance on Robin’s shoulder. “What would we do for seven hours? We’d go bored out of our minds.”

“I could find ways to entertain you,” she replies, raising an eyebrow before dissolving into giggles.

“I’d be driving,” Alex reminds her with a laugh. “Hasn’t your mother taught you about not distracting the driver?”

“Nope, which would explain the state of our car,” Robin sighs, rolling off the bed and stretching. “So on this little trip, we should definitely take your parents’ car.” Robin started getting driving lessons the way every kid in Storybrooke for them; with no official driving school, every kid learned from their parents. Which meant Robin got to drive her mother’s less-than-ideal car slowly around the streets of Storybrooke with her mother instructing her every move, ‘slow down, slow down, speed up, gently, stop here, make way’. She loves her mother, more than almost anyone, except for Roland and Alex, she’s tied for first place with them (Hope isn’t too far behind) but she just wishes she could learn to drive herself, especially since her mother’s dislike for driving makes it just as painful for her.

“How is driving with your mom anyway?” Alex asks. Robin pulls a face, but her cheeks turn pink at the same time; Alex could always read her mind. “That bad?”

“Not bad.” Robin picks a Rubix cube off Alex’s floor and turns the faces around in her hands, creating whatever pattern fate dictates. “Just…. Bad-ish.”

“Bad-ish,” she replies, raising an eyebrow. Robin shakes her head.

“I don’t know,” she admits. She looks up at Alex, a playful smirk on her face. “Maybe you could teach me instead?”

“If only,” she sighs, poking Robin’s stomach with her toe, still lying on the bed.. “But I still have my little R plates on.” Robin grabs her leg and pulls her across the bed, making her yelp in surprise, laugh and then protest against the fabric burn on her back. She sits up on the edge of the bed, Robin’s hands cup her face and trail down to her shoulders, one hand toys with the blue streak in her blonde hair. “Robin, this New York thing… Is it real?”

“Could be,” she says, but Alex’s smile faulters slightly, reality beginning to cast doubt on their long-time dream. “We don’t even need a hotel, we can just use Emma’s old apartment that she uses for vacations.” Alex nods, beginning to smile again, cocking her head to the side. “Well we’ve got all summer to think about it.”

“Indeed,” Alex says, swinging herself off the bed and leaning on her desk, arching her back. Robin’s phone chimes, alerting her to a text. She pulls her phone out of her pocket, but simply slides it away and puts it back in. “Who was that?”

“Roland,” she sighs. “I can text him later, it’s fine.” Alex nods, rearranging some things that don’t need rearranging on her desk. “Everything’s good between you two isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” she says. “It’s just… Well, he wants me to go to Sherwood Forest for a few weeks. You know, live rough, camp with the Merry Men, hear stories about my dad, that kind of stuff.”

“Oh…” Alex replies, lifting a pen out of the pen pot and placing it on the desk. “That sounds cool.”

“I guess,” Robin replies, rubbing her neck. “I don’t know. I mean it would be cool to hang out with him and hear about my dad but… I don’t know if I want to rough it with the Merry Men for two weeks, hunting my own food and singing ballads in the middle of the forest.” Alex laughs and leaves her desk to take Robin’s hand and pull her close. “Guess we can’t all be Cinderella’s daughter…”

“If you ask me, I think you should go,” Alex tells her. “Not every kid gets to go back to the Enchanted Forest, R.” Robin nods. Alex doesn’t need to tell her what else she could get from a trip with Roland; she already knows how Robin feels about her late father. That’s a subject neither want to touch when it’s just the two of them and school is out, and the sun is making the whole room turn orange. Alex rests her forehead on Robin’s and they stay there, noses brushing against each other, until Robin opens one eye and notices something on Alex’s desk.

“What’s that?” she asks, nodding at the thick white book with a bright photo of an old building on the cover and blue lettering. Alex follows her gaze and rolls her eyes.

“College brochure,” she sighs, stepping back and picking it up.

“I didn’t realise you had to make those choices now,” Robin says, hugging her arms around herself. “You haven’t even started your senior year yet.”

“Mom thinks I should get an early start,” she explains, flicking open the book, skimming through the pages in a flurry of pink, red and orange, her smile growing wider with every page she passes. “Look at the psychology course they have, it looks so cool!”

“Where’s this one?” Robin asks, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Los Angeles!” she squeaks. “Wouldn’t that be amazing?” Robin nods, half-listening to Alex talking about the beach and Hollywood and celebrities and the sunshine, while all Robin can think about is how LA is on the other side of the freaking country.

“LA… Wow that would be… So different from Storybrooke.”

“I know, it’ll be great,” Alex says. “No more rain and small towns and people talking about what I was like as a kid!” She pauses in her speech, taking a look at Robin’s arms crossed over her chest. She sighs takes Robin’s hand in hers. “And I will definitely be flying you out every single weekend.”

“It’s your bankruptcy,” Robin jokes half-heartedly. Alex kisses her wrist.

“Anyway, I don’t even know if I’ll go to LA,” she says nonchalantly. “I mean I’ve looked at University of Maine, and Florida and Pennsylvania…”

“Cool,” Robin sighs. If there’s one thing worse in her mind than being the girl whose girlfriend is a six hour flight away, it’s being the girl who made her girlfriend give up on her dream school to make her happy. “Anyway, that’s not a problem for right now.” Alex tosses the brochure on her bed.

“Indeed,” she replies. Robin tries to be casual. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Actually I think I should be getting home,” Robin says, wincing. “My mom will be making dinner soon and…” She wants to hit her head off the wall. Dating Alex, it’s amazing, and perfect, but it never fails to make her feel so young. Sure, she’ll be 17 in September and they’ll be the same age, but then a month later Alex will be older than her again, 18 this time. And she will stay out as long as she wants while Robin will be running back to her house at her mother’s first text.

“Okay,” Alex says, and she plants a soft kiss on her wrist. “I’ll walk you out.”

Robin lets Alex lead her out of her room and downstairs, waving goodbye to her dad who was ironing in the kitchen, and she kisses Alex’s cheek before leaving.

Three months of just being with Alex. She makes a resolution to focus on that, and her brother and her friends and her driving, and Alex’s college choices are September’s problems.

                                                                                                *****

“Gideon,” Hope says, her chin on the arm of his chair. Gideon doesn’t even flinch; the only part of his body that even moves are his eyes, scanning over the words of his book. He doesn’t even move when she starts swaying and hitting the chair, causing it to move, while chanting his name like a prayer. Or an alarm. He loves Hope, but he’s also gotten rather good at zoning out and ignoring everything in his surroundings, even Hope, living in the worlds in his books.  “Gideon. Gideon. Gideon. Gideon.”

“Aunt Emma, Uncle Killian, Hope’s bugging me!” he says, not looking up from his book.

“I’m not bugging him!” she protests.

“And yet, I feel bugged,” he says, turning another page.

“You said we could hang out after school,” she says, throwing herself on the chair. “And you’ve been at that book since you got in!”

“Well in Gideon’s defence, he did take a dinner break,” Killian says as he comes into the living room. Gideon gestures with his book in Killian’s direction, but manages a smug, satisfied smile in Hope’s direction, to which she stuck out her tongue. “Uh, manners, young lady.”

“But Gideon made a face!” she protested. “He did this smile…..” She trailed off, refusing to admit that she knew how ridiculous she sounded.

“Well, regardless of Gideon’s smile, I can’t discipline him,” he says. “We don’t tell Belle how to raise Gideon, she doesn’t tell us what to do with you.” He cocks his head to the side, smiling fondly. “You’re bored, aren’t you?” Hope nods, pouting for the full effect. “Well, never fear. I was saving this until tomorrow morning but if you’re really that bored….” He goes into the drawer in the coffee table and lifts out two crossword puzzles. “Fresh from this week’s Storybrooke Monthly.” Hope smiles and kneels at the coffee table as he hands her one.

“Okay last time I beat you by seventeen seconds,” she reminds him, and he shakes his head and laughs. Gideon makes a show of keeping his eyes on his book, but his gaze strays often to Hope and Killian both quickly filling in their puzzles, sharing small smiles and taking breaks to think, the stopwatch ticking away on Hope’s smartphone, and he tries not to let it hurt. His Uncle Killian is brilliant, the closest father figure he’s ever had, but at the end of the day, he isn’t his own father. He tries incredibly hard to think about his late father as little as possible, if at all, despite his mother showing him where he is in the storybook, telling him he can take a look whenever he wants.

 _‘He wasn’t a bad man, Gideon,’_ she’s told him. _‘Not in the end.’_

Wasn’t he?

Someone knocks at the door, high pitched and fast and it makes Gideon smile and banish all the pain and sadness, because he knows only one person knocks like that.

“Lucas,” Emma greets at the door, letting him in. “What’s up?”

“The sky.”

“Hilarious,” she says dryly. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’re not here to see me.”

“I’m offended,” he gasps. “Emma you know I have the utmost love and respect for you-”

“Your boyfriend’s in the living room.”

“Thanks, sis, you’re the best.”

Hope waggles her eyebrows at Gideon, who is already putting his book away before Lucas is even in the room. He’s already changed out of his school uniform and wearing a blue and green hoodie and blue jeans, highlighting the green of his eyes, his blonde hair tousled and dimples in his cheek as he comes and leans on Gideon’s chair.

“Hello gorgeous,” he greets, petting Gideon’s brown hair.

“Hi,” Gideon replies, reaching up to give him a quick peck on the lips. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I thought we’d take advantage of our newfound freedom and sunlight and take a little bike ride,” he says. “What do you think?”

“I’m in,” he says, sliding his bookmark into the page-not even Lucas is going to make him dog ear a page-and getting up. “Let me just ask my mum.” Lucas nods, but Gideon can see him groaning inside. He knows what he means; he prides himself on his patience and loves his mother dearly but asking his mother if he can go out invites a full FBI interrogation. And it’s not that she doesn’t like or trust Lucas-heck, she babysat for him so much she has as many embarrassing baby stories as his own parents do-but she knows he can be a little… reckless is the nice word. And its why Gideon likes him so much. Belle less so.

“Excuse you?” Hope interrupts. “You wouldn’t hang out with me because you weren’t done with your book, but Lucas shows up and you drop everything?”

“Because he loves me, Cygnet,” Lucas responds, kneeling next to her. “Also, focus. You’re losing valuable time here, and you need it!” Hope squeaks furiously, a sound as hilarious as it is cute, and goes back to her puzzle. Gideon goes into the kitchen and finds Emma talking with his mum at the counter.

“Hey, Mum,” he begins. “Can Lucas and I go out?”

“Where?” she asks, her grip already tightening on her mug.

“I don’t know, maybe down to the lake.”

“On the bikes?” Gideon nods, glad they already had the agreement a few months ago that he can ride without his helmet. “You have your phone?”

“Fully charged, I’ll call if there’s anything,” he promises. “And I promise to be back my half 10. And call you at 10.”

“You really know all this by heart?” his mum asks, chewing her lip. Gideon nods. She takes a deep breath and smiles while pulling all her hair over one shoulder. “Sure, of course you can.”

“Thank you!” he nearly sings, hugging her lightly before running to get his bike, ruffling Hope’s hair on the way out. Soon it’s just him, Lucas and the roads of Storybrooke. And Philip, once they pick him up. They speed down hills and road together, laughing and talking and feeling like absolutely nothing matters.

                                                                                                *****

Belle feels a light tug on her shoulder and she turns to see Emma smiling fondly at her. Belle sighs and turns completely, leaning on the counter.

“He’ll be okay,” Emma assures her. “He’s smart. Smart enough that going to do something dumb, he can talk him out of it.”

“Yeah I know,” she sighs. “Emma, do you think I’m too protective of him?”

“Are you asking me to violate our no backseat parenting rule?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

 “I guess I am,” she answers.

“Well… You kind of are,” she admits, in her unique way that’s equal parts prickly and tactful. “But I mean, who can blame you after everything that’s happened to him?” Belle nods. Despite how peaceful Storybrooke has become, she can never escape the niggling feeling that something is going to happen to him. Rumple’s words ‘ _he will have a price on his head_ ’ come back to haunt her at least once a day. Emma takes her hand. “He will be okay, Belle. And besides, we’ve all been protective with them at one point. Remember how Killian and I were with Hope when she was she was little?”

“He babyproofed the hook,” Belle admits. “And you contemplated using the magic restricting cuff.”

“See? We’re all a little protective. It’s part of the parenting thing,” she says, squeezing her hand. “Don’t worry about it, Belle.”

“I know,” she sighs. “It’s just…. Before he was born Rumple said that…”

“And that’s where I’m going to stop you,” Emma says. “You know he was just saying that to scare you. Nothing’s happened to him in sixteen years.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she says. Emma runs her hand up and down Belle’s arm and takes a look over at Hope and Killian, still caught in their crossword competition.

“Now come on,” she says, taking Belle over to the living room sofa. “It’s Friday, and we’ve got some terrible TV to watch while those two battle it out.”

                                                                                                ******

Two swords clash together in a back garden and quickly part. One challenger draws back fluidly, the other pauses before making a clumsy launch forward, only to be immediately blocked by his opponent’s sword, which glides against his with a grating sound before the force throws it out of his hand, and he finds himself faced with the end of a sword with no defence and yet another crushing feeling of loss.

“Thank god those swords are blunt,” Aurora remarks from the patio.

“Do you really think I’d run him through?” Philip Senior asks, removing his mask and holding his hand out to his much smaller opponent. “You fought well, son.”

Philip Junior awkwardly removes his mask, grunting as it gets caught on his brown hair, before shaking his father’s hand with a sigh of defeat. He’s been learning fencing from his father since the age of seven and if anything, he’s sure he’s got worse since then. His lack of skill, and frankly, enthusiasm for the sport, never stopped his father from trying with him, testing different weapons to see if his skill set lay in a different sword; going through his sword, borrowing a cutlass from Hope’s dad and even giving in and trying out swords from the land without magic, and there has been no success.

“I didn’t, but thanks,” he mumbles, taking his glove off and unzipping his fencing jacket. His father sighs and looks other to his mother, a silent plea for help. She comes down off the patio and comes over to them, touching Philip lightly on the shoulder, both to comfort him and to stop him from running up to his room.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she tells him. “You’re improving.” Philip sighs and wants to tell her how wrong she is, but he holds it back, mainly because he knows that how much doubt he has, she will give him more confidence and encouragement.

“Maybe,” he concedes, just to make them happy. “But maybe fencing isn’t for me.”

“Nonsense, you’re my son,” his dad insists. “And our family comes from a long line of warriors.” Philip can repeat this speech off by heart and it’s gone beyond tiresome and to the point where he can zone out during it and tune back in just in time. “Why don’t we try again.”

“Why don’t we take a break instead?” his mother says. “Philip that science show you wanted to watch will be on soon.”

“Surely you can record it,” his dad begins, but a silent look from Aurora silences him. In the book, Aurora is noted many times for her gentleness and beauty, but the book tends to leave out the steel that hides behind her heart shaped face and blue eyes, and it’s a shame. Philip knows his mother can easily stand with Emma Swan and Snow White in terms of courage and ferocity, even though she is less of the type of hero who fights with a bow or sword; her weapon is her heart and her will. “On the other hand, maybe it is time for a break.”

When Philip goes inside however, there’s a knock at the door. On the other side are Lucas and Gideon, both astride their bikes and both laughing at something. Lucas rings his bike bell and winks cheekily.

“Coming out?” he asks. “Not of the closet, though.”

“Let me ask,” Philip replies, already laughing. He turns to see Aurora already in the kitchen. “Mom, can I?”

“Of course,” she says. “Just make sure you’re home by eleven.”

“Not a moment later,” he promises and he gives her a quick kiss on the cheek, not caring about what his friends will think (he knows Gideon would do the same thing and Lucas would if he didn’t have an image to protect) and runs out to the shed to get his bike.

                                                                                                ******

Within minutes, Lucas, Philip and Gideon chase each other carelessly on their bikes on the near-empty pavements of Storybrooke, only dodging the occasional pedestrian or car, before turning off and entering the woods, taking on the harder challenge of avoiding trees and manoeuvring over rocky, uneven paths and up and down hills before reaching their destination. They found it when they were 13 and on a camping trip with Emma, who promised not to tell anyone, not even Hope, about their secret place.

It sits in the deeper part of the woods, past dense patches of trees that most people turned their backs on. The trees gradually get thinner until they give way to a clearing with patches of grass and mostly hard ground, but a great blue lake that they used to think could go on for miles. Now that they’re older, they know it’s nowhere near as big as they thought; they can swim the length of it with little difficulty, but with just the three of them, it feels like it’s their own private ocean.

They dismount and run to the lake, Gideon sitting himself on one of the large rocks next to it, Philip and Lucas running to the shore and skimming stones. Well, skimming was a polite word. Philip certainly has the technique down, most of his stone lightly skimming across the water and creating small ripples before sinking. Lucas, on the other hand, has a few successes, but most simply curve into the air, hit the water and fall in. Not that he minds.

“You’re not putting enough spin on it,” Gideon says from his rock.

“I’ll spin you in a minute,” Lucas replies. Gideon frowned and looked form Lucas to Philip.

“Am I meant to be threatened or flattered?” he asks.

“Both,” Lucas answers.

“Oooh, kinky,” Philip says, causing Gideon to erupt into laughter and Lucas attempt to flick water at him. They keep skimming stones, trying but failing to have a competition. Gideon at one point moves from his rock to the bank with them, lying on his stomach with his ankles crossed and chin on his fist. “You look like a glamour model, Gideon.”

“I am a glamour model,” Gideon says, rolling a piece of grass between his fingers. Lucas sits down with a flop and his hand moves to Gideon’s back, his fingertips running up and down his spine, making him feel safe. He smiles and shuffles a bit closer.

“You two are gross,” Philip remarks.

“That’s homophobic,” Lucas replies, making Philip roll his eyes.

“No, this kind of stuff grosses me out in straight couples too,” he replies. “If I had known telling Gideon you liked him would have made you two so grossly affectionate, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Come on, Phil, don’t be mean,” Gideon says, pouting for the full effect. “You know you love us.”

“I love nothing,” he says, but he smiles. Nothing they do in here is serious and that’s what makes it amazing. “I strongly like you two together.”

“So what was your dad doing when we came over?” Lucas asks. “Looks like we saved you.” Philip groans and pulls a face.

“Fencing training,” he sighs. “He should know I’ll never get it.”

“Never say never,” Gideon scolds. “That’s what my mum says.”

“Yes because your mother is normal,” he reminds him. “Also, let me have my angst.” Philip lies back and stares up at the sky. “But really, I’m hopeless at this prince stuff. You’re lucky, Luke, you got the good genes.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But that’s just dumb sword fighting. The two of you got the brains.”

“And that’s why we make such a good team,” Gideon says. Philip sits up, beginning to smile.

“Anyway, when are we ever going to need to swordfight?” Lucas asks. “Not like villains ever come here.” Gideon crosses his fingers and blows on them. Philip and Lucas raise an eyebrow.

“Just in case you don’t jinx it,” he says.

Lucas winks at him and picks up some more pebbles, throwing them in from where he sits. A few birds fly overhead while the sun sets. Gideon lets Lucas lift him to his feet and try to teach him how to skim (he knows, of course he does, but he likes the feeling of Lucas’ arms around him) while Philip stared at the sky, drumming on his stomach. They each let their own petty worries fade away, melt in the sun.

                                                                                                     *****

In a small blue house next to the ocean, sweet music fills one small room. Melody stands in her room, violin on her shoulder, fingers and bow flying across the notes, sheet music sitting on her pink stand, brown hair tied back with a blue ribbon.

The phone on her bed pings into life, the screen brightening. She takes a break to check and when she sees a text from Hope Swan-Jones, pink spreads across her cheeks, even at the small word “hi”.

 **Hope:** Hi

 **Melody:** Hey

 **Hope:** What are you doing?

 **Melody:** Practising

 **Hope:** You need practise?

 **Melody:** :P A little every day

She stops and records a small sample, a quick scale and the opening of Part Of That World from her mother’s movie, one of her favourites, and one that isn’t entirely inaccurate, as opposed to some other movies she’s seen.

 **Hope:** Sounds amazing!

 **Melody:** You’re sweet. What are you up to?

 **Hope:** Bored… Gideon left me on my own to play with his boyfriend

 **Melody:** Gross

 **Hope:** Ikr!! But I beat my dad at a crossword so it’s nbd

 **Melody:** Cool!

Melody stares at her phone, waiting for a response from Hope, wondering if she should say something else. How could she just respond with “cool”? Surely there was another thing she could say? But her mind was completely blank, her finger taps on the side.

She turned back to her practice, running through song after song in her book, her eyes focussing only on the sheet music and not her red cheeks and silent phone.

There’s a small knock on the door and it creaks open and her mother steps in. Red hair down to her shoulders and dimples in her cheeks. Mel wishes she looked like her. Her mother’s tall and slender form looks graceful, fitting the mermaid queen she is, but Melody looks like a scarecrow.

“That sounds lovely, Melody,” she says fondly.

“Thanks,” she says, twirling the bow around her fingers. “I’m not off book yet, though.”

“On one song?” she laughs. “Give yourself a little credit.” Just then, Melody’s phone pings again, the screen lighting up. “Who’s that?”

“Hope,” she answers, reading the screen. Hope’s replied _‘It is. Want to meet up? Not tomorrow, whenever’_ and she tries not to smile, tries to act like her heart isn’t fluttering and there aren’t butterflies around in her stomach. “It’s nothing important.”

“Of course,” Ariel says, shaking her head slightly. The Storybrooke mothers have said they pride themselves on knowing true love when they see it, and Melody hopes that’s not the case. Her mother knowing about her feelings for Hope would be devastating, despite her close friendship with Hope’s mom and especially her dad. “Are you going to hang out with her over the summer.”

“Hopefully,” she replies nonchalantly, playing a few more soft notes before setting the violin and bow back in the case. The sun hits the crystal in her window and make rainbows dance on her walls.

“How about you take a break from music practice and come out to the store with me?” she asks. “I need to get some vegetables for dinner, and maybe some candy?”

“Sounds awesome,” she says and lifts her jacket off her bed, leaving her phone on her bed.

                                                ******

Hope’s eyes didn’t move from her phone. Melody hadn’t even seen her text. There were so many sensible reason she didn’t see; she had gone to the bathroom, gone downstairs, not heard her phone go off, was busy playing her music. Or she had simply seen the notification and didn’t think it was worth responding. She scrolled through the messages, conversations that went on for hours, always ending in awkward goodbyes or, more common, ending in a ‘lol’ or ‘cool’ and neither one knowing what to say.

“Hope,” her mother began, pulling the phone down from her face. “Want to come out in the real world?” Hope laughs softly. “Come on, you’re staring at that phone so intensely you look like you’re trying to make it explode.”

“I don’t think I spend that much time on my phone,” she responds, knowing her mother’s insinuation. Emma smiles and shares a raised eyebrow with Killian. “Okay, don’t try to get Dad on this, he thinks phones are demons anyway.”

“I do not,” he protests. “Though why you are so obsessed with your smartphone I will never understand. Never saw the appeal.”

“You should get a smartphone, Dad,” she tells him. “Your phone is literally from the 1800s.”

“They literally did not have phones in the 1800s,” he reminds her, his English accent changing to mimic Hope’s American teen accent. Hope scrunches her face at him and swings her legs off the sofa.

“I would be hanging out with Gideon if he didn’t swan off to play with Lucas,” she tells them. “Anywhomst, I’ll be in my room.”

“Not sure that’s a word,” Killian says.

“It is now,” Hope says as she exits the living room. She just about reaches the bottom of the stairs when the door knocks.

“Hope, want to get that while you’re out there?” Emma calls from the living room.

“Yeah I got it.” She turns and opens the door, mildly wondering who it could be. It wouldn’t be Gideon, not right now, and anyway he has a key. Most likely someone trying to sell something. Or it could be… Melody.

She really has too much of her namesake in some situations, she thinks as she opens the door.

“What’s up Cygnet?” the visitor asks. Brown tousled hair and bright hazel eyes, a brown leather jacket zipped open to reveal w red t-shirt, dimples in his cheeks and a black duffel back with patches from all over the US and Europe and Asia. But his chin is a copy of hers.

“Henry!” she squeaks, wasting no time in jumping into his arms, even if it does nearly knock the two of them off the porch. He once remarked that it was cute when she was six, but she knows he still thinks it’s cute now.

“Well that’s a greeting,” he says, dropping his back and wrapping his arms around her. “I missed you, kid.”

“I missed you too!” she sighs when he puts her down. Since she last saw him at Christmas, he’s shaved his beard and she’s grown, nearly able to look him in the eye. She knows she never will, though. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“I have three weeks of nothing. No interviews, I don’t have to be on set, no meetings,” he explained. “What better way to spend it than at home?” Hope laughs again, hugging him around the waist, rubbing her cheek against the leather.

“Well someone’s happy to see her brother,” Emma remarks. Hope turns around to see her parents and Belle in the entryway.

“You know this was happening,” she accuses. Emma shrugs with a satisfied smile.

“Of course,” she says. “I just wanted to see this first hand. And by the way… The woman who gave you life is still waiting hug-less over here.”

Henry laughs as he pulls Emma into a bear hug. She laughs into this shoulder, the shoulders she once placed her hands on. He doesn’t exactly tower over her now but he is at least half a head taller than her.

Hope leans against the doorframe and watches her mom and brother hug. It goes on for longer than her hug with Henry did. She knows all about Henry and Emma, of course. How he found her, how they broke not one but two curses together, how she was willing to jump into the sea and swim to Neverland for him. All that epic fairy-tale stuff that makes what she and Henry have so special.

Henry pulls away from her and moves to hug Killian, who laughs at how tall he’s got now and tells him how quiet the house has been. Henry simply asks what he’s using to cover up the grey in his hair.

When Belle hugs him, he can rest his chin on her head even in her heels.

“No Gideon?” he asks.

“Out with Lucas,” she replies. “I know he’ll want to see you when he comes back.”

“He’s young and in love,” he sighs. “In the meantime, I can hear a lot about what this one’s been up to since I last saw her.” He turns to Hope, making his fingers into little guns and pretending to shoot her.

The family settle in the living room, Henry and Emma on the couch, Hope on the arm with her legs draped across Henry’s, Belle and Killian sitting in the armchairs against the window, all while Henry tells them about his time on set of his last movie.

“It’s been so crazy trying to get them all on set together,” he explains. “Robert Downey Junior is only available for half the year and Tom Holland isn’t available March to June, which is one of the slots I have with Robert, and I need them together for…. Something.” He raises a cryptic eyebrow.

“You shouldn’t be telling us this, should you?” Hope asks.

“Yeah, not really,” he winces. “So to stop me spilling the beans and Marvel killing me and burying me in a ditch, Hope, why don’t you tell me about your life.”

“Nothing’s happened that much,” she confesses, picking at the fabric on her sofa.

“You won your lacrosse tournament,” Killian reminds her. “Henry you should see her on that field.”

“You couldn’t see anything. Just this little flash of red,” Emma agrees. Henry laughs and gives Hope a proud smile while her cheeks go pink. She has her father’s modesty it seems, but also a fierce pride in her achievements. Which makes a rather weird combination.

“Nice one, kid,” he asks. “You don’t… per chance… Have a trophy you want to show off.”

“I mean,” she replies, rolling the hem of her top between her fingers. “If you really want to see it.”

“I do.”

“Sweet!” Hope jumps up and heads to her room in lightning speed. She hears Emma laughing and murmuring something to Henry. In addition to getting her trophy, she feels like she’s giving her brother some private time. She knows there’s conversations she won’t be privy to, and that’s fine. She’s 15 and he’s 30. They’re different people.

She doesn’t mind. She really doesn’t.

She swipes the trophy from her shelf, the third in a hopefully growing collection, and bounds back down the stairs, pausing outside the living room to listen.

“… Yeah, I mean LA’s great, but maybe moving closer to home might be better,” she hears Henry say, and her sock-clad feet dance on the floor.

“Just make sure you do what’s right for you, kid,” Emma tells him. “We’re not going anywhere. Besides, we’re just a five minute portal, or six hour flight away. Or a…. How long does it take to sail there, Kil?”

“According to my charts, it will take us the better part of four days,” he says. “Without a proper crew. So I doubt we can make the trip by boat.”

“But I would love to take Hope out there,” Henry says, and Hope has to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep her from squealing with delight. Los Angeles! Sun, celebrities, Henry, sun, actual shopping. “You know she’d love it. And now that school’s out.”

“That’d be great, kid,” Emma says. “And she’s old enough to go out there on her own.”

“She is?” Killian asks. “I mean, she’s strong, but she’s still only 15…”

Hope takes the cue to go back in, trophy in hand, like she hasn’t already planned out half the trip to LA already, right down to the clothes she’d wear on the plane.

“Well look at that,” Henry remarks. “Very fancy.”

“And we were playing against the Arendelle team,” she brags shamelessly. “They’re vicious.”

“They have to be, growing up in that weather,” he says, handing it back. “Nice work, kid.”

Hope laughs, ready to launch in to the story of her finishing goal that broke their tie with just five minutes in the game left, when she feels something. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, her blood runs cold for a mere few seconds and she swears she hears something like a long wind blowing through her house.

“Hope?” Emma asks. “Hope?”

“Hmm?” she asks as the feeling fades. Her dad is nearly off his chair, his eyebrows creased, while Belle is clutching her hair. “I’m fine. I don’t know… Just felt something…”

“What kind of something?” Belle asks, looking to Emma, eyes wide.

“I don’t know. It’s probably nothing,” she assures them. “Really, I’m fine now. Really.”

“Okay,” Emma says, but her tone and unspoken communication with Killian shows it’s anything but. But her smile and settling into the sofa also show that it’s tomorrow’s problem.

                                                                                                *****

Despite what she says, Hope doesn’t quite manage to shake off the feeling. It’s faded, but the hairs on her arms still prick up, even in the warm temperatures and in her own bedroom as she’s getting ready for bed. She wanders around her room, brushing her hair out and braiding it in her choice of pyjamas-an old jersey and checked pyjama pants.

“Hello, sunshine,” Emma says, knocking softly on the door.

“Hey,” she greets, tying the elastic around her braid. Her mom taps her foot against the floor, her shoulders tightening. “Are you okay?”

“The question is, are you?” she asks. “Tonight, you looked….” She searches for the words, her hands seeming to grab at thin air, causing Hope to giggle. “Spooked, I guess.”

“I’m fine,” she says, sitting down on the bed. Emma sits down with her, giving her a look she’s come to start calling the ‘I call your bullshit’ face. Her mother’s superpower is impressive, but it’s also very irritating. “Okay, so maybe I am slightly less than fine.”

“Want to talk about it?” Emma asks.

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “It’s not like it’s anything bad. I’m not upset. I just felt something kind of weird.”

“What kind of weird?” Emma asks in a hard voice.

“I don’t know. If I had to use a word…. Dangerous?” she guesses. “Or bad maybe. Wrong.” Emma takes in a deep breath and nods. Something in her face reminds Hope of the Saviour she read about in the storybook. Then it’s gone in an instant as she smooths down her hair.

“First thing tomorrow morning, your dad and I’ll do a patrol. We’ll check the town line too,” she says. Hope wonders if she’s talking to herself or her. “Just to be safe.”

“Just to be safe,” she repeats with a small smile. Emma grins and kisses her hair and she’s her mom again.

“See you in the morning, kiddo,” she says.

“See you,” Hope replies as Emma leaves and she buries herself in her pillow. She lifts her phone and scrolls through Pinterest, getting inspiration for her trip out to LA, looking at sundresses and glasses and tourist sites and beaches, letting the idea of a vacation in LA fill her mind, putting any worries out of her mind, so much so that she barely registers the purple haze flying briefly past her window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo this chapter was very long, likely longer than the rest will be, in order to introduce the kids and their relationships. I've daydreamed about this for a while and now I'm finally putting this baby out into the world and *screams* this is fine.  
> Leave comments if you please to feed the ego and my creative juices.  
> Also to any SQ shippers: I hope the little "Regal Dove" shippers bit isn't upsetting, that's not my intention. It's my way of showing that in this universe, the show has a fandom. Henry loves the Regal Dove fandom


	2. Chapter 2

Hope wakes up a little before her alarm went off, her body apparently still stuck on school mode. She switches the alarm to off before it can go off and buries herself back under her blankets, only half awake, living in her dreamworld of beaches and bike rides until she wakes properly, just a little after eight. It seems the long lie ins will take a while to come around properly. She settle for lying awake in bed with the covers around, running through imaginary conversations with Melody. She tries to divert her mind away from Melody and towards her hypothetical LA trip or any fun she could have this summer and it’s partially successful. Partially.

She finally starts getting restless, the covers begin to feel constricting, so she kicks them off and jumps out of the bed. She pulls on a white t-shirt and dungarees, not fashionable, but practical. She’s never been bothered about what “looks good”, especially in days like today when her only plans involve sitting inside and watching TV, maybe with the occasional venture out into the garden. Alex claims she has a similar approach, calling her wardrobe style “whatever I find first” but she still manages to look effortlessly gorgeous, albeit in a messy way. And then there’s Melody, who always takes pride in her looks, carefully matching every shirt with the right skirt and getting every detail right, even down to the ribbon she’ll decorate her hair with that day.

It's equal parts infuriating and adorable.

She pulls the sheet off her canvas, revealing her current project. Until a year ago, her drawings had mostly consisted of copying scenes from books and movies, her family’s story mostly, as well as her favourites. Her art box contained drawings of Harry Potter on the moving staircases of Hogwarts, Carrie White covered in blood at the prom (Henry’s idea to watch it, not hers), Spiderman on a New York skyscraper and Winnie the Pooh (one of her earliest projects). As she got older, she branched out a little, starting on quick sketches of her friends and family and onto landscapes, which she considered to be her favourites, and figures from her own imagination.

Right now, she’s working on a painting of a black haired, blue eyed fairy with a pink dress. So far it was so good, even if she had only really done half of it. She picks up her brush and starts experimenting with different shades of pink, mixing it with red and white and purple until she is satisfied with the colour for Isabella’s dress.

Okay, so she names her characters too. Nothing weird about that.

She starts on the outline, making the sleeves and hem of the dress a little darker, before painting the main body a lighter shade of pink, taking care, brushing gentle, careful lines down the canvas. Gideon has his books, Henry has his writing… Hope has art to get lost in. While in New York last summer, her parents had taken her to an art gallery, where she happily fell in love with picture after picture.

She steps back, admiring her work. While she doesn’t want to toot her own horn, so to speak, she would say it’s pretty good. She doesn’t pull the sheet over it, cautious of the wet paint, and packs away her paints and brushes before pulling open her curtains. Outside her window, the sky is light blue, streaked with faint clouds. The rest of Storybrooke is oddly quiet. At this hour, she surely would see people going about their day, but even Granny doesn’t have her sign out and the streets are deserted.

She goes downstairs, taking them two at a time, passing her parent’s closed bedroom door, and enters the kitchen to find Gideon sitting cross-legged on the table, already dressed in a white check shirt over a blue t-shirt and jeans, hunched over another book. He regards her with a nod, but his eyes don’t leave the page.

“Morning to you too, Gideon,” she greets, pulling herself onto the counter to reach the cereal. She busies herself with making a bowl while Henry comes in, still in his pyjamas, his hair messed from sleep.

“Coffee,” is the first word he says to either of them. He walks to the cupboard like he’s on autopilot and takes out the coffee grounds. Gideon, miraculously, puts his book down and uses his fingers to frame Henry like he’s on a TV screen.

“And here we see the adult in his natural habitat,” he says, voice low and husky like a nature documentary. “In the morning, the adult can only function on minimum energy, and so misses key functions such as manners, good graces, and the ability to brush one’s hair.” Hope squeals with giggles while Henry raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“You really want to go with me while I have hot liquid?”

“No, I’m good, I’ll go back to my book,” he says. Hope sits herself on the counter with her cereal, feet tapping against the drawers. From her spot, she has a view of the living room window, and can make out the yellow curve of her mum’s car, which sets off a little bell in the back of her head, which doubles when she looks at the clock and realises it’s nearly 10.

“Hasn’t Mom gone to work yet?” she asks. Henry frowns and looks down the hall. Hope just notices the red and black leather jackets still hanging on the coatrack, as well as Belle’s pale pink coat. A shiver runs down her spine.

“That’s weird,” Gideon remarks. “Maybe they forgot to set their alarms?”

“Have you met my father?” Hope replies. “He never forgets to set anything.” Henry nods. Hope begins to run her thumb and index finger around each other, trying to dispel all her nervous energy.

“Hey,” Henry begins, coming over to her and taking her fidgeting hand. “They just slept in, Hope. It happens. Maybe something knocked out their alarms or something. Nothing suspicious, okay?” Hope nods, still not entirely convinced, and Henry squeezes her cheeks before turning to go upstairs. Gideon watches her from the table, reading her like he reads his books.

“Come on,” he says, jumping down from the table and reaching his hand out to her. She frowns at him. “You’re clearly itching to get up there, so come on.” Hope slides her hand into his and jumps off the table.

“Thanks,” she whispers as she grips his hand tighter.

“Any time, Cygnet,” he says while they go up the stairs together. They find Henry paused at Emma and Killian’s bedroom door, his hand just above the wood, his fingers dancing anxiously.

“Nervous?” Hope asks, making him jump. She doesn’t let go of Gideon’s hand.

“Course not,” he says, faking a smile. Hope nods and swallows the lump in her throat. “Let’s do this.” He turns the door handle and pushes it, letting it slowly creak open. The room is dark, save for the light of the lamp on the right side of the bed. Henry pauses at the doorway before he takes small steps in. Hope and Gideon follow, creeping in like little mice. Emma and Killian are still asleep, both facing right, Emma’s arm around his waist and her cheek on his shoulder. There’s something about seeing your parents look so intimate with each other, sharing the quiet moments, wrapped up in their own love. It looks like a piece of art, too beautiful to disturb.

Henry inches closer to the bed while Gideon and Hope remain in the doorway, their legs nearly frozen.

“Mom,” he whispers, shaking her shoulder. “Mom?” His voice grows louder slightly, beginning to panic when doesn’t even stir. “Mom? Mom!” He reaches across Emma and desperately shakes Killian’s shoulder as well, calling his name. Neither of them even move.

“Oh no,” Hope whispers, her chest growing tight. She squeezes Gideon’s hand; her nails dig into the flesh and her body turns cold. “Oh no, oh no.” She looks to Gideon, his eyes wide and his shoulders shaking. “Hey.” She drops his hand, despite it being the only thing that’s keeping her from screaming. “Go check on your mom.” He looks from Henry still shaking Emma and Killian to Belle’s bedroom door behind them.

“Thanks,” he mutters before throwing himself down the hall and into Belle’s room.

Meanwhile, Henry runs his hands through his already-messy hair, his breathing grows ragged. Hope’s never seen him scared.

She comes over to the bed. Up close she can see that her mother’s mouth is open slightly and her hair is in a loose ponytail and that her father’s hair is messy and he’s not wearing a shirt.

She watches Henry place two fingers on Emma’s neck, then Killian’s, and he breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

“They have a pulse,” he mutters, more to himself than her. “They’re alive, they’re breathing.” Hope nods, a whimper escapes her mouth. Henry looks over at her and something new comes over him. He kneels down to Hope’s level and holds her shoulders.

“Hey,” he whispers, trying to smile. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find a way to wake them up.” An idea flickers in the back of Hope’s mind.

“Try True Love’s Kiss,” she suggests. Henry nods, seeming to silently kick himself for not thinking of that. He kneels beside Emma and pushes the hair off her forehead. He takes one look back at Hope before pressing his lips to her head.

Nothing happens.

She can’t help gasping as another wave of tears hits her.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, coming and kneeling in front of her now. “Look, kid, none of our parent’s adventures were this easy. We’ve only exhausted option one out of an infinite number of possibilities, okay?” Hope nods, her eyes burning, just as an out of breath Gideon appears in the doorway, his lashes spiky.

“I can’t wake mum,” he says. “I tried, I turned on the light, I shook her, but she-”

“Hey, hey,” Henry says, taking him by the hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

“How?” Gideon asks as tears run down his red face. Henry sighs and takes a panicked look back at the comatose Emma and Killian before sitting Hope and Gideon on the edge of the bed.

“Look, back in the day, our parents dealt with stuff like this all the time,” he reminds them. “It always looked hopeless at the start, but they got through it. They got me off Neverland, they stopped Zelena from changing the past, heck, Mom saved Killian from Hades! Okay? Our family is unstoppable. And so are we.” There’s something in the way Henry says it, the conviction, the fire in his eyes, that has both of them believing him. It doesn’t lift the weight in Hope’s chest at all, but it makes the tears come a little slower. Henry smiles at them and kisses them each on the head. “Right, let me get dressed first, then we can scout the rest of the town. See what’s going on with everyone else.”

Minutes later, a now-dressed Henry runs out onto the streets with Hope and Gideon in tow. The streets are completely deserted, shops have their shutters down, curtains are closed. A light wind blows across, making trees rustle ever so slightly.

“It’s a ghost town,” Gideon remarks.

“What if we’re the only ones here?” Hope asks as goose bumps form on her arms. She has a feeling they’re not from the wind. Henry puts his hands on his hips as his eyes scour the street.

“We can’t be,” he says. “We just… We can’t be the only ones here.”

As it turns out, they’re not.

Gideon gasps loudly and Hope turns, her fists instinctively lifting, until she realises the new arrival is Lucas, his arms around Gideon’s waist, panting. He seems completely lost to everyone who isn’t Gideon.

“Thank god you’re okay,” he sighs, releasing him from his grip and pulling Hope into a tight hug, crushing her head. She doesn’t mind. If anything, she feels awful; Lucas didn’t even cross her mind. “Oh you’re okay.”

“I take it you’ve got the same problem as us,” Gideon says, his voice thick, as Lucas lets go of Hope and slips his hand into Gideon’s. “Your parents….”

“I tried everything,” he says. “I did, but they just wouldn’t move.” Henry turns to face them, the panic clear on his face, though he smiles briefly at Lucas. “Henry, what do we do?”

“Um… I don’t know…” he admits. “Why don’t we look through town? See who else we can find.” They agree, of course, given it’s the only idea they’ve had. Since splitting up is not an option, they walk through Storybrooke together, Henry leading the pack with the three of them clinging to each other behind him. They could hear a pin drop.

As they wander through streets, no real plan, they finally see another figure and feel weak with relief. And the dark blonde hair and brown jacket are instantly recognisable.

“Robin,” Hope sighs as she runs to meet them. When she meets them, they can all see how red her eyes are. Gideon doesn’t waste time in throwing his arms around her neck and Hope is close behind him.

“I am so glad to see you guys,” she pants. “My mom, she can’t wake up.”

“Neither can ours,” Gideon explains. “From the looks of it, we’re the only ones awake.”

“Alex is too,” she tells them. “I called her a few minutes ago.”

“Hope?” someone asks behind them. Hope is sure she knows the voice, and she finds she’s correct when she turns and sees Melody, wearing a pale pink lace t-shirt tucked into a floral skirt, ponytail tied with a baby blue ribbon. She runs towards the group, skidding to a half when she reaches Hope. “You guys are all still here.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” Hope replies. She tucks her hair behind her ears and straightens her dungarees, partially to give her hands something to do and partially because she’s suddenly become self-conscious. She can’t pretend she doesn’t know why.

Alex comes running down the street next, throwing her arms around Robin, who whispers “thank god” breathlessly, before she turns to face the rest of them, regarding them with a breathless smile. Gideon looks from each member of their little assembled group, counting them under his breath, muttering their names, and his eyes widen.

“I’m going to check Philip,” he says. They go with him, of course. No one wants to be left out on the street alone.

Philip’s house is completely closed down, no lights, curtains drawn. Hope, Melody, Robin and Alex hang back with Henry while Gideon and Lucas creep up to the doorstep, Gideon holding Lucas’ arm like his life depends on it (and standing slightly behind him) while Lucas knocks the door. When no one answers, they wait five minutes and try again. And again.

Lucas grumbles and pushes the letterbox open.

“Philip!” he calls. “Phil, it’s Lucas. Come on, if you’re here, give us a sign.”

To all their surprises, the door opens just a crack. From where Hope stands, she sees Philip’s face appear.

“Prove it,” he demands. She wonders if he thinks he’s tougher than he sounds. “Tell me something only Lucas and Gideon would know.” The two look at each other, sharing a silent ‘yes’ and look back at Philip.

“Freshman year, last day before Christmas break, you got up on the desk when Miss Ackerman was out of the room and then…”

The door is yanked open, revealing a wide-eyed Philip, brandishing a saucepan in one hand, who throws his arm around Lucas before doing the same to Gideon.

“I thought you guys were demons or something!” he explains, brushing his fringe out of his eyes. “And we also agreed to never talk about that ever again.”

“So you were going to… make them pasta?” Alex asks, half giggling. Philip looks up and just notices the rest of the group.

“I was short on weapons,” he replies as he, Lucas and Gideon join them, waving the saucepan under Alex’s nose. The laughter quickly subsides. The emptiness creeps in on all sides. Hope feels Henry’s hand on her shoulder, and it gives her some grounding anyway. Philip twirls the handle of the saucepan between his fingers until it slips and hits the floor. “So… now what?”

They don’t know. None of them know. Alex, who normally has an answer for everything, is twirling the blue streak of her hair while her eyes dart everywhere. Robin opens her mouth, then closes it again, and opens it again and closes it again. Like all she needs to do is say something, no matter how ridiculous.

“Why don’t we set up a base somewhere?” Henry decides. “Town hall?”. It’s the best idea they’ve heard all day, so they take it and walk to the town hall in an awkward, tense silence. Henry, naturally, leads with Alex and Robin close behind, their hands linked. Alex whispers something in Robin’s ear and Robin manages the tiniest of smiles, which only grows wider when Alex kisses her ear. Hope trails behind them with Melody wand Gideon on either side of her, but Gideon takes one too many looks back at Lucas and Philip.

“Hey,” she says, brushing her elbow against his. “Go hang out with your friends.” He smiles faintly and puts a hand on her shoulder. She guesses it’s meant to be comforting.

“We’ll be okay, Hope,” he says.

“I know,” she sighs. She squeezes his hand, something she started doing to him before she could talk. It lets him know she’s okay, that she loves him. He smiles and falls back to his friends and they form their own little trio.

And she’s left alone with Melody.

Something tells her that her pounding heart and dry mouth aren’t just because she’s scared out of her mind.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” Melody says. “I mean, I’m glad you’re all here.”

“Thanks,” she replies. “I mean, I’m glad you’re here too, I mean if you weren’t here I’d be really nervous. And I’d be really upset about it.”

“You would?” she asks, smirking. She has such a lovely smile.

“Yeah,” Hope squeaks. “I mean, you’d leave me here with all these losers?”

“We’re right behind you, Hope,” Lucas reminds her. She turns and sticks her tongue out at him, and she doesn’t miss Gideon’s knowing smile, the raised eyebrows when he looks at Lucas and Philip. If the circumstances were different, she’d smack him. Instead, she turns back to Melody.

“Thanks,” she says. They go quiet and Hope racks her brains for something to say. She envies the quiet support Robin and Alex can give each other, and the endless chatter behind her.

“You look really pretty,” she says. “I mean you always look really pretty but… you know I mean… I like your skirt.”

Nice one, Hope.

“Thanks,” Mel says, running her hand over it. It is pretty, just something Hope would never wear. “Yeah, I just threw this on.” In Mel-language ‘just threw it on’ means ‘this was the third one I tried’. “I really like your overalls.”

Liar, Hope thinks. Melody wouldn’t be caught dead in something so basic.

“Um, you have a bit of… Pink, on them,” she points out. Hope looks down to see a splash of pink of her chest.

“Oh, yeah,” she mutters, scratching behind her ear. “I was painting this morning. I guess I got a little carried away.”

“Cool,” Mel says, toying with the hem of her skirt. “Really cool. Something important or…?”

“Um, not really,” she says. “Just like… I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

“Well, I doubt it’s stupid,” she replies.

Hope can’t think of a reply, but they come up on the town hall soon enough and hurry inside. Hope realises she’s never actually been in it before. She doesn’t know what exactly she expected but what she gets is a black and white marble floor like a chessboard, white walls with a pattern of trees on it, a brown desk with a tiny sense of foreboding around it and rows of metal chairs.

She sits herself down in one, not knowing what else to do. Henry leans against the desk, not looking at any of them.

“Okay,” Robin says, breaking the silence. She marches up to the front and waves her hand, presumably to switch on the lights, but all that happens is the bulbs flicker. She tries again, and again, and again, until they finally switch on for her. “Okay… So let’s make a plan.” Meanwhile, Alex goes to the corner and starts filling and handing out glasses of water.

“A plan for what?” Lucas asks. “We don’t even know what happened.”

“So we’ll find out,” she says. “Gideon!” His head snaps up at his name, and she tosses him a marker. “You’re the nerd here, write this down.”

“You’re bossy,” he says, but he runs up to the front and drags a whiteboard on wheels out from the corner.

“Okay,” Robin says, taking a deep breath in. “Calm. Logic. What do we know?”

“All our parents are asleep,” Philip begins.

“It’s not a sleeping curse,” Lucas suggests. “At least I don’t think it is. Sleeping curses make you look dead. All our parents, they’re breathing, their hearts are working.”

“And it’s not just our parents,” Hope adds. “It’s everyone in town, except us.”

“So what sets us apart?” Alex asks. “What makes us different.”

Nothing, Hope thinks. Gideon taps the pen against the whiteboard, which is already covered in his scribbles, arrows pointing out of a central question “what do we know”, until he drops it.

“Oh my gosh father!” he declares, not really to anyone in particular. His cheeks turn pink as he picks the marker up again. “Think again, what do all seven of us have in common?”

His answer is a bunch of shaking heads and raised eyebrows.

“None of us were born in the Enchanted Forest!” he reminds them.

“Oh my god that’s it!” Henry declares. “Gideon you’ve got it.”

“It sounds right,” Melody says. “But… we’re the only ones in town not born in the Enchanted Forest? Seems a little far-fetched.”

“Not as far fetched as you think, Mel,” Gideon says, beginning to bounce and his eyes light up. “There’s this tradition amongst the older generation to have their kids in the Enchanted Forest. I don’t know sentimentality, or something. So they pop through a portal and go. But none of our parents did. Alex was born during the curse….”

“Thinking about it, all my friends at school were pre-Dark Curse babies,” Alex mutters, getting on Gideon’s level.

“Exactly!” he replies. He grows more animated as the pieces fall into place, reminding Hope of some kind of mad scientist. “Me, Luke and Philip, most of our friends were born during the Missing Year.”

“A lot of Missing Year babies,” Robin confirms.

“Yeah, as the author, I can confirm, Missing Year was a fun time,” Henry says, grimacing.

“And Robin was born in Storybrooke. Which leaves Hope and Melody,” he concludes. “Your parents must have skipped it and had you two in Storybrooke.”

“My parents wanted to,” Mel agrees. “But I came two weeks early. They couldn’t make the trip.”

“My parents just didn’t want to,” Hope agrees. “My mom wasn’t born there; my dad was a villain there. They don’t think of it like a home.”

“So whatever this thing is it clearly doesn’t affect people not born in the Enchanted Forest,” Gideon concludes. On the board behind him, the words ‘non-enchanted forest people’ and ‘NOT A CURSE’ are scrawled. He reminds her of Doctor Whale sometimes in the mad scientist way.

“So how do we fix it?” Alex asks. She sits on the windowsill, her arms wrapped around Robin’s shoulders with Robin’s hand over hers. “How do we wake everyone up?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Henry says. “Maybe we check the library first, there’s books on everything in there.”

“He’s right,” Gideon says.

“And if not then… Then it’s time to turn to our parents.”

“Our parents?” Robin asks, wrinkling her nose.

“Yeah. Robin your mom’s the Wicked Witch, Hope our mom’s the Saviour and Gideon your dad…” Gideon flinches before the sentence can be finished. Henry’s hand curls into a fist, realising he’s inching close to the line. “Anyway, the point is our parents need to have something around to help us.”

“Uhh… guys?” Melody asks from behind them. She crouches in front of the table, eyeing a glass of water with more worry than there should be. “Sorry, but… I think something’s coming.”

And then Hope feels it. The ground shakes beneath her and she can see what Melody was worrying about; ripples form on the water in the glass. Soon the walls of the hall start to shake. They all drift towards each other, clinging to however is closest to them as the walls continue trembling, threatening to break on them. Henry steps in front of the little bundle they have created, trying to shield all of them with his body.

“What is that?” Philip asks, his voice barely a whisper as he frantically looks around the hall.

“I think I know,” Robin replies in a trembling voice. Almost against her own will, Hope follows her eyes and looks out the window, feeling her heart in her throat. Her hand tightens on the wrist of whoever is next to her.

Outside, she sees what Robin was so scared of. Sludge-green, at least 8 feet tall, wearing a scrap of brown fabric its waist. It lumbers down the road before stopping outside and turning its head, letting them see the dull yellow eyes.

“Is that…” Philip whispers.

“An ogre,” Henry replies.

They hit the floor when it turns to them. Hope feels the beat of her frantic heart against the wood and closes her eyes tightly. She presses her palms into the floor to keep them from shaking. Her chest feels hollow, making her heartbeat seem louder.

This can’t be happening. This doesn’t happen, not now, not to her or any of them. This is all meant to be over now.

“What do we do?” Melody hisses as the footsteps get a fraction quieter. “How do we defeat a troll?”

“Wasn’t it in the book?” Philip asks. “Snow and Emma, they fought one.”

“Right,” Hope sighs, searching for that part of the book in her mind. It sounds familiar, but she’s drawing a blank on the details. “How did they beat it?”

“Mom shot it with an arrow,” Lucas reminds them. “Right in the eye.”

“Pity we don’t have a bow and arrow,” Robin grunts.

“Maybe we don’t need one,” Gideon mutters, more to himself than anyone else.

“Do you have a plan?” Philip asks. Out of all of them, he’s the one closest to the floor, his body pressed against it.

“I think so,” Gideon replies, beginning to smile. Hope follows his gaze and sees what he’s looking at; the two swords mounted on the wall behind a shield baring the Charming family crest; a flower. “Hope, Robin, I’m going to need your help here.”

                                                                                                *****

Gideon, Hope, Robin, Lucas and Henry manage to escape the town hall from a side door. The rest stay inside, reckoning that there’s no point in risking more people. Although there’s no risk, because they’ll be fine if this all works out. If.

Outside, the road is destroyed with the ogre’s footprints. He’s a good bit away from them, far enough so that as long as they remain as silent as possible, he won’t notice them until they need to. They move swiftly down the road and take cover behind Leroy’s truck, which, true to character, he left sitting out on the sidewalk.

“You sure this will work?”  Lucas asks. Gideon hands the sword over to Robin with shaking hands.

“I hope so,” he sighs. “You two clear on what to do?” Given how dry her mouth is, Hope can only nod.

“We’ve got it,” Robin whispers. Hope wonders how he manages to sound so confident. It’s only her fidgeting fingers that give her away. Gideon smiles weakly at them and follows Henry and Lucas to the middle of the road, grabbing Lucas’ hand.

“Hope,” Robin asks suddenly, grabbing her shoulder. Her green eyes are torn apart with worry as she looks from her to the ogre. “I…. My magic… I don’t know if I can do this…”

“You can,” Hope assures her. “Just think about who you’re protecting. That’s what Mom says she did.” Robin nods shakily and they place their hands over the sword together. She mutters ‘Alex’ under her breath.

“Hey!” Henry yells. “Hey you big… dumb ogre!”

That’s one way to get its attention, Hope thinks as it turns around. Immediately, she starts wondering if this plan will work. If it doesn’t and it gets any of them killed, she’ll kill Gideon for it. Especially if it’s Gideon who gets killed.

“Robin, now,” she hisses. She reaches inside her, calling to her magic. Her mother has told her so many times that magic is a part of her. She works with it, not it for her. And this should be easy, simple levitation. It’s one of her favourite things to do.

In the road, the boys keep taunting the ogre over to them and it works. He lumbers over, slowly, but it rattles the ground with every step he takes. Hope keeps her eyes on it, tracking its movements. They worked out a marker; the shoe shop. That’s where it has to be when they fire at him.

She doesn’t think about what would happen if she misses her cue. All she can focus on is holding the sword up. Especially when she feels it getting heavier on Robin’s side.

Come on, she thinks, watching the ogre as her friends keep luring it closer. Three more steps. Two more. One more….

“Robin now!” she calls, and they send the sword flying through the air. The ogre doesn’t even notice, too busy focussing on the potential snack in front of him. Thank god for dumb ogres.

Then the sword begins to take a dip before it can meet its target.

“Not on my watch,” Hope mutters, and throws her hands out, letting magic run through her veins and out her hands, and she sends an invisible wind to keep it up until it lands where it should; in the ogre’s chest. Slightly left of middle. Right in its heart.

The ogre stops in its tracks, and for a moment doesn’t even move. For a moment, Hope fears that it will rip the sword out of its body and trample Storybrooke to the ground. Until it lets out a long, low moan and sways before falling to the ground, the force knocking them to the ground with it. Hope lies there, winded on her back, looking up at the sky, just letting herself come back down to Earth, before she gets up.

“Hey,” she says to Robin, who looks paler than normal. “Hey, we did it.” She laughs, despite the fact that the world isn’t exactly standing still right now.

“We did it,” she pants, smiling. She pulls Hope into a tight hug before they run over to the boys.

“See? Fool proof,” Gideon says, adjusting his glasses.

“If that failed, I’d have killed you,” Hope pants.

“Are you two okay?” Henry asks, rubbing his arm.

“Fine,” Robin says and Hope nods. Henry tilts his head to the side, unconvinced. “Hope?”

“I’m fine,” she assures him. “A little shaken up I guess, but fine.” She turns her attention to the dead ogre lying in the middle of the street. “Is that it? Did we do it? Does everything go back to normal now?”

“Can’t be,” Gideon says. “Ogres can’t cast curses, they’re too dumb. He has to be working for someone.”

“Great,” Robin sighs. “So who can command ogres? And more to the point, what do we even do with it?”

But as it turns out, they don’t need to do anything. They see a mist begin to settle over the ogre, making it look fuzzier and muting the colours more than they are already. Logically, they should be scared, or ready to fight back, but they’re all varying degrees of confused and mesmerised. The ogre gets fuzzier and fuzzier and the colours fade before running and blending into each other and then Hope realises what’s happening.

“It’s disappearing!” she announces, just as it fades from them entirely.

“No way,” Lucas says, and he runs to where it was, Gideon running after him. Lucas stands in the exact spot it had been lying, jumps up and down and waves his arms around. “It’s gone!”

“So what.. it was never real?” Hope asks. She turns around and sees the footprints in the road.

“The damage it did was real,” Robin points out, tucking her hair behind her ear. “So it had to have been real… Right?”

“We can deal with that later,” Henry says. “For now.. We did good.”

“We?” Hope asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You two did good,” he sighs. “Come on, let’s get you guys back into the hall and we can work this out there.” Hope falls into step beside her brother while Robin walks on with Lucas and Gideon, Gideon letting her lean slightly on him. “You good, Cygnet?”

“I don’t know,” she confesses. “That was a lot. I mean, it felt good, but it was a lot.” She hasn’t realised before that magic can take so much out of her. She just wants to sit down now until the world goes stationery again.

“I’m sorry you had to do that,” he says. “For what its worth it was impressive.” Her cheeks go pink.

“Really?” she asks.

“Really,” he says. Slinging his arm around her. She grabs onto his jacket for something to keep her steady, because she’s sure she’s walking like Uncle Smee out of the bar. “Mom will be so stoked when she hears this.” Hope nods. When, not if. Never if. Their family doesn’t do ‘if’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So since this is an alternative season 7, I though hey, why not drop a few fancasts?  
> Sadie Sink is my Hope.  
> Rowan Blanchard is my Melody.  
> Virginia Gardner is my Alex.  
> For Robin, you can keep Tiera, but my friend fancast Luca Hollestelle and she's kinda perfect, so if you want to imagine her that's awesome.  
> Tommy Knight is my Gideon.  
> William Moresy (Peter from Narnia) is my Lucas  
> Greg Heffley is my Philip.  
> As always, thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

They half-run back to the town hall, not wanting to spend too much time outside. Henry keeps glancing behind them, a protective hand on Hope’s back, worrying that another ogre, or something worse, could be rearing behind them. The air is too still, too silent, though that could be because none of them want to talk about what happened until they’re safely inside. Still, not even birds are flying above them. Henry wonders if the curse, or spell, or whatever it is that’s happened to the town, has affected the animals too, and makes a mental note to check the animals on his grandfather’s farm later.

He keeps rubbing his sister’s back, small circular motions to keep her grounded. She tries not to let on that she’s been affected badly by what she and Robin just pulled off but she’s paler than normal and light purple bags have formed under her eyes and she’s leaning more and more on him by the minute. He wraps his arm tighter around her and she takes the hint and buries her face in his jacket. Part of him wants to pick her up and carry her back, the same way he used to do after long days chasing her around a park when she was a kid, but he doesn’t. She won’t stop walking and he knows it’s to protect Gideon’s feelings more than her pride; Gideon would never let himself forget it if he knew Hope was hurt. Plus, he seems to be taking most of Robin’s weight.

Lucas jogs ahead a little and reaches the town hall a few steps ahead of them. When he pulls the door though, it doesn’t budge. He frowns and tugs it again, harder this time. When Henry catches up with him, he can hear the shaking metal against metal of the door scraping against the frame. Still nothing. Lucas frowns and takes a few steps back before running up and kicking it, which only sends him stumbling back and muttering a string of curses under his breath.

“Try knocking,” Gideon says helpfully. Lucas nods, sweeping his hair out of his eyes and shaking his wrists, trying to save what dignity he can.

“Alex! Philip, Mel!” he calls, knocking on the door. “Open up y’all, it’s us!”

Behind the door, the sound of chair scraping, locks unlocking and wood hitting the floor is heard, dragging on for thirty seconds, then a minute, then another minute. Under other circumstances, Henry would be laughing at this. He does raise an eyebrow, and when Robin groans into Gideon’s shoulder he does suppress a smile, despite Hope smacking him weakly on the shoulder.

Finally, the door opens to Alex, who looks relieved at the sight of them, until she sets eyes on a pale and panting Robin.

“What happened?” she asks as they file in.

“Uh, ogre, magic, pretty sure it disappeared,” Robin explains. Gideon sits her down in a chair and Alex kneels down next to her, looking from her girlfriend to the rest of them. Robin takes her hand and squeezes it gently, telling her something Henry can’t make out. Alex smiles slightly and kisses her forehead.

Henry helps Hope into another chair. She takes in deep breaths and clutches the edge of her chair tightly.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pushing her hair out of her face. Her skin is cool and clammy and he winces.

“I’m fine,” she says. She moves to push his hand away but ends up wobbling herself, grabbing his shoulder for balance. “I’m fine.”

“You’re an awful liar,” he tells her, which doesn’t marry well with the fact she’s stubborn as a damn mule. Hope looks over her shoulder and Henry follows her gaze. Gideon is standing over with Lucas, pressing his joined hands to his mouth, looking at Robin. Then he looks over at Hope and Henry can see his face fall. Hope sees it too.

“I will be fine,” she says. “Just get me some water and a cookie and…” She closes her eyes and buries her fingers in his jacket. “Make the world stop spinning for a second.”

“I can do the first two,” he promises, making her laugh. He gets up and runs to the tiny kitchen in the town hall. He had first encountered it when he was eighteen, volunteering at a Christmas fundraising bake sale. Honestly, he had had no idea it had even existed until then, but now he’s glad he does. He takes out two plastic cups and fills them with water before checking the cupboards. There’s got to be a packet of cookies around there somewhere. Chances are they’ll be a little bit stale but Hope and Robin are going to need some sugar. He finds a packet, slips them into his jacket pocket and lifts the two cups. When he turns to go, Gideon is standing in the doorway, looking at the floor, his feet crossed, his hair hiding his face.

“Hey, Gid,” he says gently. He lifts his head slightly, guilt written all over his face. He’s always been one to wear his emotions all over his face.

“Are Hope and Robin okay?” he asks. Henry runs his hand through his hair, tugging at it slightly and sighs.

“They’ll be okay,” he assures him. “A little bit of sugar and rest, and we’ll never know anything happened.”

“But something did happen,” he points out. He clenches his fist tightly. “I shouldn’t have pushed them like that.”

“Hey, hey,” Henry replies softly. “Look, Gideon, you did what you had to do. You saved us from… whatever that was.”

“I know,” he mutters, his tone utterly deflated. “But Hope and Robin could’ve been hurt.”

“You could have been hurt too,” he reminds him, kneeling down to eye level with him and gripping his shoulder softly. “But you weren’t. And they’re fine too.” Gideon tucks his chin into his chest, trying to avoid Henry’s eyes, but Henry takes him chin gently and tilts his head up. “Look, Gid, this was impossible. You were the only one who thought of a plan back there. Don’t worry about Robin and Hope. Heroes tend to get a few scratches along the way.” Henry rubs circles on Gideon’s arms. “Come on, kid, don’t beat yourself up.”

“Okay,” he says, nodding to himself. “Okay.” Henry smiles and stands back up. He knows Gideon isn’t convinced; he takes on more blame than he should. Gideon sometimes seems far more mature than sixteen. But right now, there’s stuff to do and he knows he can’t convince him otherwise. He just hopes Gideon can work it out for himself.

“Here,” he hands him a cup of water and two cookies. “Give that to Robin. I’ll take care of Hope.” Gideon smiles and takes them. “And really, Gideon, try not to think too hard on it. We both know if you didn’t think of something, it would have been Hope charging at it with a sword herself.”

That, finally, gets a real smile out of him.

                                                                                                                *****

Robin lets out a long, steady breath. The cookie Gideon brought her must have magic in it, she thinks, because its starting to make a world of difference, clearing her head and letting her form coherent thoughts and sentences with more than five words. The world is still tilting slightly and her legs feel like lead just sitting down, she’s not even going to chance trying to move, but she’s starting to feel more herself.

Although, with the way Alex is sitting next to her, brushing her hair away from her forehead and holding her water and helping her drink, she must look far worse than she feels.

“I’m not dying, Alex,” she reminds her with a smile. A time crosses her mind when she was sick last year, just a few weeks after she and Alex started dating, and Alex had gone full-on mother hen mode, texting her during school hours and climbing through her bedroom window to check on her.

The stand off between Alex and her mother had been pretty amusing to watch.

“I know,” she replies, touching her forehead for the second time in the past three minutes. “Just making sure.”

“Yeah I know you are,” she replied softly, taking Alex’s hand and running her thumb over her knuckles and trying to smile.

“You okay?” she asks, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear.

“Fine,” she says. She shakes her head for just a moment, but the movement makes her dizzy and she grabs Alex’s shoulder with her free hand. “Remind me not to do that again.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” she half-laughs. She frowns and looks up at her, her eyes scanning her face. “Rob… you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” she repeats. “Just tired.” Alex raises one eyebrow, silently communicating ‘I’m tired too, tired of your bullshit’. She looks around them at the rest of their little group. Gideon, Lucas and Philip sit in a little bunch in a corner, lost in their conversation. Hope is sitting on a chair a few rows in front of her; Henry sits in front of her, holding one of her hands and talking to her, while Melody stands off to the side, playing with the hem of her skirt and casting longing glances at Hope when she thinks no one is watching her.

Poor girl.

Robin looks back at Alex, whose eyes are wide and who is giving her an encouraging smile, the kind that makes her feel like she can open up her heart and let everything out. Relieve the weight that’s pressing down on her, making it hard to breathe.

“It’s just… That was hard,” she admits.  “Using all that magic…” Alex nods. Late at night, over the phone and in person, Robin’s magic has come up a lot. How it’s nowhere near as strong as her mother’s, or even Hope’s. She can amuse her friends by making roses bloom or making things disappear and sometimes pushing herself to “poof” as Emma calls it food into her room, but they both know she pales in comparison to every other magic user in Storybrooke.

“Of course it was hard,” Alex insists. “Heck, even Hope is wrecked after that.”

“You know what I mean, Al,” she sighs. “This whole magic thing… it’s still hard for me.” Alex nods again. She doesn’t say anything but she kneels up and kisses Robin’s forehead.

Maybe that made her feel a little better.

“Hey,” Robin says, tapping Alex’s shoulder to get her attention. When she looks at her, Robin moves and kisses her lips this time. Alex hums in contentment for a brief moment before pulling away, sooner than Robin would have liked. Although, she is starting to get dizzy again. Still, she pouts.

“Get better first,” Alex orders. “Then we can do whatever you want.”

“Is that a promise?” Alex laughs and kisses her head.

“It’s a promise.” She gets up and sits on the chair beside Robin, wrapping her arms around her. Robin wriggles so that she can rest her cheek on her chest, listening to her heartbeat, closing her eyes against the rhythm. Alex traces patterns on her back and arms, almost making Robin forget that her mother is lying in a coma a block away and that the street outside has been demolished by an ogre.

It briefly crosses her mind that it’ll be hard to hug Alex like this if she’s in LA in two years, but she lets that thought go, wanting to put it aside until this is all over.

                                                                                                *****

“Hey, Hope.” Hope looks up and sees Melody standing next to her chair, kicking the ground in her patent shoes and moving ever so slightly so that her skirt swishes gently. “How are you feeling.”

“Okay,” she says, and it’s not untrue. She does genuinely feel better, a lot sooner than she expected too. Her head is clearer, she’s not feeling dizzy anymore (although she hasn’t tried standing yet and that could very much change everything), and she finds it significantly easier to breathe. She’s never used that much magic before, and as exhausted as it made her, she has to admit the after effect is kind of amazing. She feels stronger somehow, like she could do it again. Her body hums with magic, her veins warm and fizzing.

“That was really cool,” Melody says. “What you did out there. Pretty brave.”

“It was nothing,” Hope says, lacing her fingers together. “I mean anyone else would have done the same.”

“Nah,” Melody corrects her. “You’re kind of a hero.”

Hope feels everything stop. Her heart, every other person in the town hall, everyone else in Maine, probably everything in the whole world. Nothing else matters for about five seconds, only the fact that Melody just called her a hero.

“T-thanks,” she mutters in response, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I mean, it wasn’t just me. Robin was there and it was kind of all Gideon’s idea, but…” Melody smiles, dimples in her cheeks, and sits down on the seat in front of her, leaning on the back of the chair. She taps her fingernails on the chair, chewing her lip. Her big brown eyes start looking sadder and Hope remembers everything that’s happened since that morning. “Are you okay?”

“Me?” she asks, surprised. “I mean… I’m fine, but I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” she says. “But everything’s been kind of crazy since we got up this morning. So, how you holding up?” She laughs at herself. She sounds just like her mom. Melody huffs out a laugh and ducks her head slightly so that her ponytail falls over her shoulder, half hiding her face.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “This has all just been so weird. I keep thinking it’s a dream, you know?”

“Thinking or hoping?” Hope asks. She smiles but doesn’t answer.

“It has to work out, right?” she asks. “It always works out for the good guys.”

“I guess,” she says. “My grandma would say good always wins.”

“My mom says that too,” Melody says. “She says to just do good things and the world will give good things to you. But I guess she was kind of wrong.”

“What makes you think that?” she asks. Truthfully, she’s never been one hundred percent convinced about her grandparent’s philosophy of ‘things will work out’. She’s discovered she tends to be more of a cynic and guesses she gets it from her father.

“Because this is happening,” she answers. “This isn’t a good thing.”

“Yeah… ever notice how bad stuff keeps happening to the heroes first?” she asks. “I mean what’s up with that?” If Ariel’s philosophy was true, then nothing bad would ever happen to heroes; they’d live forever sitting on cotton candy clouds and drinking champagne or whatever from diamond glasses while riding on unicorns. And they wouldn’t have problems talking to pretty girls. Or have to deal with ogres or comatose parents.

“They win in the end though,” Melody reminds her.

“Yeah, I guess,” she sighs. “Just after a whole lot of pain.”

“Hey.” Mel reaches out her hand and Hope hesitates for a moment before taking it. She expects her to shake her head and tell her that she was just pointing to something on the floor behind her, but she doesn’t. She just keeps holding her hand and making Hope’s heart skip a beat. “I think we’ll get through this with minimal pain.”

The bluntness in her statement, the ridiculousness of it all, makes Hope burst into laughter.

“Minimal pain,” she echoes, giggling. “That’s optimistic.” Melody laughs back, small but bright.

They keep holding hands like that until the feeling Hope can only describe as buzzing fades away and Mel’s arm begins cramping and she pulls her hand away, smiling shyly. Hope curls her hands in her lap, looking at her bitten and worn fingernails, the splatter of paint on her palm, left from this morning when she was just worrying about her painting and nothing else.

“I hope you’re right,” she says. “Gideon sometimes says I need more of what I’m named after.”

“I think you’re smart,” Melody tells her and it makes Hope’s head snap up. “I mean, the way you see the world. The way you look at stories, how you notice stuff like how bad stuff happens to the heroes first.”

“Oh, thanks,” is all she can say. “Henry says that every story needs villains and bad stuff, otherwise it wouldn’t start and there’d be no story in the first place.”

“Do you believe him?” Melody asks. Hope looks over to where her brother is sitting against the wall, his eyes on Gideon, who is in his own group with Lucas and Philip.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Thing is, stuff like this isn’t stories. It was real life. For our parents and now it is for us.”

“Wow,” she whispers. “That was real deep.”

Hope hides her face behind her hair, but she’s smiling, the butterflies in her stomach taking off. Although, she thinks as she presses her hand to her stomach, that might not just be butterflies.

“Hey, is anyone else hungry?” Philip asks, addressing the whole room, and Hope honestly wants to hug him. “I’m starving.”

                                                                                                 *****

Of everything they’ve seen so far, an empty, silent Granny’s is the most startling. Their footsteps seem to echo on the linoleum, the sound bouncing off the walls. Granny’s always feels like the heart of Storybrooke, and even on the most quiet days they could count on Leroy drinking coffee at the bar or Archie coming in for a pastry after closing his office. Right now there’s only them. They don’t ever remember feeling so small in here.

They slide into a booth; it’s a tight fit with seven of them, but they make it work, even if it means Melody gets squished against the wall. At least for the couples of the group it’s not an unfamiliar situation. Henry takes a chair from one of the tables and seats it at the edge of the table.

“So… do any of you know how to work the stuff here?” Robin asks. “Because I sure as heck don’t.”

“Did you just say ‘heck’?” Lucas asks, snorting, thinking about how much she can swear when she wants to. Robin raises her eyebrow at him, somehow wordlessly conveying the message ‘yes I did because there are children here’.

“Can’t be too hard,” Henry says, getting up and going to the kitchen. After a brief, non-verbal discussion involving looking around the table, all of them get up and follow him. They move as a group, still tense from the previous ogre attack. Being left alone isn’t a very appealing thought right now.

“Wow,” Philip remarks as they step into the kitchen, into Granny’s world of heavy metal machinery and silver trays. It’s big enough and has three large ovens built into the silver walls and two three doors, one marked ‘dry goods’ one marked ‘fridge’ and one marked ‘freezer’. “This is… now what I expected.”

“What were you expecting?” Alex asks.

“Not sure,” he replies as Henry begins looking through the dry goods cupboard. “Ever watched MasterChef?”

Henry emerges from the dry goods store with a triumphant smile on his face, three bags of pasta, a tub of some kind of sauce and a bag of celery.

“Uh… are you sure you can make something with all that?” Hope asks, wrinkling her nose.

“You realise I’ve lived on my own for over a decade?” he asks, kicking the door closed. “I’ve got this. Give me half an hour and a bit of love and patience.”

Sure enough, nearly thirty minutes later, they’re all sitting at the bar, eating tomato-sauce covered pasta covered with chopped celery, and it’s not as bad as Hope thought it would be. In fact, it actually tastes pretty good, which is odd, considering her brother has rarely cooked for her ever since he set fire to a chicken and her dad banned him from the kitchen under the guise of not wanting him to stress himself.

“You don’t make it like Granny does,” she points out, making Henry roll his eyes.

“I know, but she keeps her recipes in a locked and bolted box in her room.

“You should have gone for it,” Lucas says. “Maybe it would have woken her up.” A laugh ripples throughout the group, but they fall silent. Lucas’ remark reminded them of what they’re really up against and how damn helpless they all are.

“So what should we do now?” Philip asks. They look from one another and then all look to Henry, like he would have all the answers. When Hope was younger she used to believe he did, and maybe a part of her still does.

“Um, okay…” he says. “Well, we should set up a base. Try to work out what we’re facing.”

“Okay, so where?” Robin asks, pushing pasta around her plate.

“The library,” Gideon says firmly. “It’s got everything we need, right? Books, lockable doors.”

“And access to the mines,” Henry adds. “Just in case we need to make a quick getaway.” He looks to the rest of them, hoping for some sort of reaction. “Sound good?”

They all murmur some form of yes with quick, small nods.

“I think we should suit up as well,” Robin adds. “Get weapons, just in case. You never know, Mr Ogre might come back. Or one of his friends.” Everyone turns to face her. Hope finds herself surprised by the suggestion, but then again, it’s not entirely unreasonable. In fact, she’s surprised no one thought of it sooner. Still, the thought of having to defend herself doesn’t sit well with her.

“Robin’s right,” Henry agrees. “Right, let’s go get whatever we can and then meet at the library.”

“We’ll need other stuff too,” Melody adds. “Like, sleeping bags and stuff. And toothbrushes. And fresh clothes…”

“Do you think we’re on vacation here, Mel?” Lucas asks.

“Well, she’s not wrong,” Henry says. He pushes himself off his stool and straightens himself up, putting his hands on his hips. An image of their grandfather from the storybook comes to Hope’s mind. “We’ll go back to our own places and grab whatever we need. Pack light and meet in the library in half an hour. You all have your cell phones? Call if anything happens. Also, we’re using the buddy system.” Robin and Alex join hands as they jump off their seats. Meanwhile, Gideon looks over at Melody, who looks at the floor, and back at Lucas.

“Henry, can you grab my stuff from my room?” he asks. Henry frowns but nods. “You know what I need. Melody, I’ll go with you.”

“You will?” she asks, smiling.

“Sure. They can manage without me for a bit.” He looks back over at Lucas, who is already standing with Philip, and they both nod at him.

“Okay, half an hour,” Henry repeats.

He and Hope leave first, his hand on her back, and run out into the deserted streets. Wind blows throughout the empty town, blowing discarded rubbish around.

They reach their house soon, Hope’s sneakers creaking against the floorboards. She feels Henry’s hands on her shoulders as they cross the threshold.

“Okay, go get packed,” he tells her. “I’ll get my stuff and Gideon’s.”

She runs up to her room, her footsteps loud on the wooden stairs, her hand trailing along the baby blue wall.

Once in her room, she dumps the contents of her schoolbag on her bed, scattering old tests and her pencil case and candy wrappers and drawings. She looks up and checks the clock on her wall. 1:30. This time 24 hours ago, she was sitting in math class, pretending to be watching a movie while she was playing tic tac toe with Ariana, the girl sitting next to her. The girl who was in a come because she was born in the Enchanted Forest.

She hurries and stuffs another jacket, a few pairs of underwear, her brush and her pyjamas into the bag. After a moment’s hesitation, she takes one of her sketchbooks, the one with the most blank pages, off the shelf and slides it in, hiding it among the clothes, and a pack of pencils. Then she gets logical and tosses in her phone charger before closing it, shaking it to make sure it’s not too heavy. Just in case she has to run with it.

Satisfied, she moves to the foot of her bed and opens the white painted wooden box at the bottom of it, moving extra blankets and old stuffed animals until her hand hits woods. She struggles but succeeds in lifting out the long rectangular box and opens it to see a silver cutlass sitting on red velvet, complete with leather sheath. Her parents had given her it for her last birthday, her dad declaring that now she was in high school, she was old enough to learn how to fight. She hopes that the few sword lessons he had given her would come in handy as she straps it around her waist, wishing now that she’d joined the fencing club in school.

She puts her bag on her back and leaves to meet Henry, the cutlass tapping against her leg.

She passes her parents’ silent room as she goes and her blood runs cold. She looks over in the direction of Gideon’s room; straining her ears and just about hears Henry moving about in there. He could be in there for at least a few minutes.

She presses her hand against her parents’ door and slowly pushes it open. Inside, their room is exactly the same as they’d left her; her parents still wrapped up in each other, still breathing slowly, so slowly that she could be tricked into thinking they were dead.

She swallows the lump in her dry throat and creeps in, forgetting about the door behind her. She inches closer towards the bed, wiping her sweaty hands on her overalls, her eyes beginning to sting. She falls to her knees beside her mom, her hand wrapping around hers. It’s cold and makes her wince. Her breathing nearly falls in rhythm with her mom’s, her lungs apparently refusing anything other than the bare minimum. She reaches out with her other hand and brushes Emma’s hair away from her forehead while the tears start running down her cheeks.

“Please come back,” she whispers desperately before she kisses her mom’s forehead.

She doesn’t know what to expect. If Henry couldn’t wake her, why would she? Still, she allows herself to, for a moment, live up to her name.

There’s nothing. No rainbow, no wind, no warmth. Her mom continues lying there, dead to the world. Dead to her.

Hope presses her hands against her mouth to muffle her cries. Her whole body shakes, she pulls her knees up to her chest and gasps for air, choking slightly in the process. She wants to curl up on the floor and keep crying until there’s nothing left inside of her. Or until her parents wake up. One of the two.

“Hey,” a soft voice whispers behind her. She feels her brother’s arms circle her and pull her against his chest, sitting her on his legs and resting his chin on her head. She feels the pressure of a kiss on the back of her head and all through it, she keeps crying. “I know, I know, kid. I know.”

They sit like that for who knows how long, Hope crying and Henry kissing her head and telling her that he knows, that it’ll be okay, that he’s got her. She clings to his arms, taking comfort in the only alive, awake thing in the room other than her.

“We have to go,” he tells her gently. “We said meet in half an hour.” She nods numbly, still sniffling but the tears on her cheeks are almost dried. “Come on.” She lets Henry lift her to her feet. And take her by the hand, leading her down the stairs like she’s five not fifteen.

“Wait,” she says just before they leave. She quickly checks her reflection in the hallway mirror. Red eyes and a pale face and spiky eyelashes. “I don’t look like I was crying, do I?”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you if you did,” he says, neatly avoiding the question and opening the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

The town it still deathly quiet outside as they run down the porch steps and into the street, but it doesn’t last. A low rumble echoes through the air, and the hairs on the back of Hope’s neck stand up.

“What is that?” Henry asks. He looks to the sky, but Hope looks out at the street, down towards the town line. Something inside her tells her that’s where the trouble is.

She’s proven right a few seconds later; out in the distance, she sees something shooting up against the sky just as the rumbling gets louder.

“What the hell?” Henry asks, more to himself than to her.

“It’s out at the town line,” Hope says.

“Just when you think today can’t get freakier,” he mumbles. “Let’s go.”

“What about everyone else?”

“Come on, you know they’ll be checking this out too,” he tells her. He’s not wrong. She can’t imagine any of her friends will stand back and stay safe while this is going down. They pick up their paces and break out into a run towards the town line. Hope’s heart pounds both from running and fear as they get closer and closer to whatever is going on at the damn town line.

Whatever it is, it couldn’t be worse than an ogre. Could it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave kudos+comment if you liked it to fuel my ego


	4. Chapter 4

Leaning against Alex’s bedroom wall, Robin keeps her eyes trained on her bed. Less than 24 hours ago they were tangled up there, legs weaving in and out of each other, trading lazy kisses and making summer plans. And their parents were awake and talking and the streets were still in tact and there weren’t any ogres and Hope hadn’t had to carry most of the weight in magically lifting a sword. When all she was worried about was how they were going to spend the summer and what college her girlfriend was going to.

Funny how 24 hours can seem like a lifetime ago.

Alex lifts a shirt off the ground and shoves it into her bag. Its old contents, her school stuff, litters the desk, notebooks stacked on top of each other and pens and pencils rolling around and clattering to the floor. She’d pulled her blonde waves into a braid, the indigo streak standing out proudly. Robin kicked her backpack next to her, bulging a little with her pyjamas, fresh clothes, toothbrush, hairbrush and a few magic books she had stolen from her mum’s bedroom, as well as a rolled up sleeping bag from last summer sitting next to it.

“Um, pyjamas, sweater, jeans… what else?” Alex asks, looking up at Robin.

“Toothbrush,” she replies. “Hairbrush.”

“Shower stuff?” she asks, tossing her hairbrush in and squashing everything down. She thinks to herself that Alex is lucky that she wears the same outfit for at least a week. Robin raises an eyebrow, having not thought of that before. “We will need to shower eventually. Also.. pads?”

“Exactly how long do you think this is going to go on for?” she asks, sniggering slightly.

“I don’t know, which is why we need to be prepared for everything,” she explains.

“I didn’t think of that,” she says, following Alex to her bathroom, leaning against the doorframe and hugging her elbows as Alex begins taking stuff out of the cupboard.

“You can share with me,” she says with a wink, turning to her with her arms full of two bottles of shower gel, shampoo and a pack of pads, leading Robin back to her room and pushing them all into her bag.

Robin sits on the bed, picking at the covers. Alex goes about packing, checking over what she has. She closes the bag, seemingly satisfied before marching over to her closet and pulling a blue sleeping bag out of it, dusting it off.

“How long’s it been since I used this thing?” she asks aloud. “I don’t think it’s come out of my closet since last year.”

“There’s a joke to be made in there,” Robin says, getting up and grabbing her stuff. She looks around Alex’s room, the bed still isn’t made and there’s old hoodies and jackets strewn all over the place. Alex never puts stuff away. She’s at her dresser now, shifting through pieces of paper and loose pieces of jewellery and badges until she finds what she was looking for. She turns whatever it is over in her hand, smiling gently. “Alex?” Robin crosses over to where she is, her reflection coming just behind her in the mirror. Over her shoulder, she sees what Alex has in her hand; the heart shaped necklace with an A carved into it. The one Robin got her on her last birthday. A pink blush creeps up Alex’s face.

“It’s my good luck charm,” she confesses, looking into her mirror. “I know it sounds dumb but it is.” She winds the chain around her fingers. “I wore it the day I made vice-captain of the cheer squad.” She hands it over to Robin and lets her fasten it around her neck. Robin takes the opportunity to kiss the back of her head.

“I didn’t know you believed in stuff like that,” Robin admits. Alex laughs, taking her hand and pulling it around her waist. With her other hand, she reaches out and touches a polaroid stuck onto her mirror of her and her parents when she was about eight, blonde hair still in pigtails. Still refusing to wear a dress.

“I haven’t always,” she says, her voice tight. “But maybe we need as much luck as we can get right now.” Robin nods and places her chin on Alex’s shoulder while Alex gently pulls the photo out of the mirror and slips it into the pocket of her jacket. “Come on, I need to get something else first.”

Robin follows Alex down the hall and into her parents’ room. The curtains are already open, though not tied back and the blanket torn off her sleeping parents.

Alex doesn’t even bother trying to be quiet as she goes over to her parents’ closet. Robin stays close to her, wanting to avoid even looking at Ella and Thomas. It’s not that she dislikes Alex’s parents, in fact, she thinks they’re pretty awesome, but looking at them makes her remember how she felt that morning, when her mother didn’t even flinch no matter how much she screamed.

“Lex, what are you doing?” she asks in a low voice while Alex hunts in the back of the closet for something.

“Nearly got it…. Here.”

“Shit!” Alex comes out of the closet holding a rifle in her hands. It has to be her dad’s, she knows he hunts sometimes, but she’s never seen it up close. It’s almost as tall Alex’s waist, dark brown with a forbidding barrel. “Alex, what are you thinking?”

“You said we need to suit up,” she replies, carefully putting packs of ammo into her bag.

“I know I did,” she says, thinking about the Swiss army knife from her Girl Scout days that’s in her bag. “But I mean, do you even know how to fire that thing?”

“I’ve seen my dad so it enough times,” she tells her. “It’ll be fine.”

“That’s not the same thing,” she reminds her, her voice growing higher.

“Well it’s not like I have a sword!” she snaps before pushing her loose hair out of her face. “I’m sorry, Rob. Look it’s just… I don’t have magic, like you do.” Robin kneels down next to her and puts her hand on her shoulder. “Or a sword like Lucas. What if I’m left alone with Melody or Philip again and we need to hold down the fort?” Her hand covers Robin’s. “It’s a precaution, Rob.”

“Promise you’ll be careful with it?” she asks.

“Promise.”

Robin isn’t sure she’s convinced, but they don’t have time to worry. She leans in to end the conversation with a kiss, but before she can, a low rumbling sound erupts, making her stomach drop.

“What was that?” she asks, helping Alex to her feet and moving to the window. In the distance, out at the town line, she sees something shooting into the air, only just about visible against the blue of the sky. “What the hell?”

“Come on.” Alex tugs on her hand, urging her out of the room, and later the house.

They run down the street as easily as they can with backpacks on their backs and sleeping bags under their arms and in Alex’s case, a rifle on her shoulder. They reach the town line, sweaty and red-faced and meet Gideon and Melody, his hands on her shoulder, holding her back.

“Well, that’s neat,” Alex sighs. They turn around at her words, likely not even noticing their arrival at first. Too distracted by what was in front of them.

“Is that a rifle?” Gideon asks, looking at Alex.

“Focus, Gideon,” Alex says.

It’s a wall. At least three times their height and God knows how thick. Robin shivers looking at it, and she’s not sure it’s out of fear. The temperature definitely dropped when they got there. She steps forward a little, then a little more, then a little more until she’s almost nose to nose with it. Or nose to… wall.

“Robin….” Gideon says behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his grip tighten on Melody.

“It’s fine,” she assures him. “I’m just checking it out.” She reaches out and presses her hand against it. The cold makes her flinch and it’s incredibly solid. She wipes at it, clearing up some of the fog on the surface, but all she sees is more ice. “It’s ice.”

“An ice wall?” Lucas’ voice comes from behind them. He and Philip skid to a halt behind them. Further down the road, she can make out Hope and Henry running towards them too.

“Yeah,” she says, taking her hand off it and shaking it.

“Do you think it goes all around the town?” Philip asks.

“I don’t know,” she admits, just as Hope and Henry join them, Henry holding Gideon’s bag.

“Ice wall?” Hope asks, and they nod. “Awesome.”

“I doubt it goes all the way around the town,” Henry says. “The power’s still on. And anyway, the town line is the only way in or out. Unless anyone has a magic bean and somehow I doubt that.”

“So… we’re trapped,” Alex summarises. “So whatever’s doing this to us clearly doesn’t want us to leave.”

“But why an ice wall?” Robin asks, turning back to look at it, craning her neck to try to see the top of it. They’d never be able to climb it. She could swear it’s gotten taller since then.

“I think I might know,” Melody pipes up. When everyone turns to look at her, she steps backwards, closer to Gideon, her eyes avoiding all of them. “I mean maybe, it’s just a theory.”

“What’s the theory?” Lucas asks. Melody fidgets with her ponytail, chewing her lip, half nervous, half thinking.

“The ogre, the ice wall,” she begins. “They’re both adventures from the book. The story book! Mary Margaret fought an ogre to save Emma and Elsa trapped Emma in an ice wall.”

“So you think that the book is doing this somehow?” Henry asks. “You might be onto something here, Mel.”

“Where’s the book now?” Alex asks.

“I have it,” Henry says. He turns his bag around and unzips it, pulling the book out of it. The group goes completely quiet. That book, as far as they’re concerned, is their Bible. They know their parents’ stories off by heart, in Robin’s case there’s parts she wishes she didn’t know. But it’s the centre of everything they know about their messed up little town. Henry opens it and rests it on his knee, opening it at the right page in one fluid movement. She wonders how many times he’s read it to have committed it to memory the way he has. “Here. When Elsa rolled into town, she put up an ice wall all around the town and Ingrid kept it up. And here-” He flips through the pages. “My grandma shot an ogre down in the Enchanted Forest.”

“So whatever it is is… taking inspiration from the book?” Philip asks. Henry shakes his head and puts the book back in his bag.

“Maybe,” he says, standing back up. “But for now we should get inside. Come on.”

The town is far too quiet as they walk to the library, and the journey from the town line isn’t exactly quick even though they start running. They slow down after a bit, not exactly seeing the need to run. It’s not like they’re running from anything.

Alex adjusts the shotgun on her back. Robin looks from her to Hope, who has a sword strapped to her waist, as do Henry and Lucas. Despite the weight of the magic books sitting in her bag, she feels vulnerable. Open to attack. The knowledge of how weak her magic actually is sits heavily in her stomach. Hope took most of the weight of that sword. What’s she going to do if something actually comes at her? Pull a rabbit out of a hat? And besides, her mom and aunt’s spellbooks are dark magic, and her mother has warned her about the dangers of going too deep into that.

She runs through her other options. Her experience with a sword is limited to play fighting with Lucas when she was a kid. She doesn’t think she’s even seen a gun up close until today. She’s handy enough with her fists and kicks. She can take on a basic schoolyard bully or asshole in Granny’s. Not an ogre. An ogre would snap her in half.

When they get into town and along the street to the library, something catches her eye when they pass the pawn shop and she feels a pull in her gut. She slows down as they pass it, looking in the window. Propped up in the window display is a brown leather sheath filled with wooden arrows, a large bow sitting beside them. She knows what it is, of course. There’s only one archer in Storybrooke’s history who wouldn’t need his arrows anymore.

Her fingers twitch and she takes a few steps closer to the window. She’s noticed them before, of course. Belle has assured her she has no intention of ever selling them, just in case she ever wants them for herself. She used to decline, not thinking she’d ever use them, but now, the sight of the bow and arrows seems to offer her protection.

She can’t be called Robin for nothing.

“Robin?” Gideon’s voice is in her ear, his body beside hers. “Rob, what is it?”

“Does your mom have the key to this place?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “I left it back at my house, why?”

“Well.” She slips a pin out of her hair. She looks at Gideon and smiles at the look of shock in his wide eyes. She’s not sure why, she’s dragged him into worse than this. “Basic tumbler lock, right?”

“Robin what the heck are you doing?” he asks as she approaches the door and slides the pin in.

“Quiet, I need to concentrate,” she tells him, visualising the inside of the lock.

“Robin, this is breaking and entering!” he whispers furiously. “We could get in trouble!”

“With who? The passed out sheriff?” She hears the pins in the lock clicking away. Her tongue darts out the side of her mouth, like it always does when she’s concentrating. Gideon apparently gives up on talking her out of it and instead leans against the wall, muttering furiously under his breath. “I’ll make it up to you, promise.”

“Oh I would love to see you attempt that,” he replies. She looks up at him with a smile when she hears the final pin click away. She turns the handle and the door creaks open. “Where did you even learn to do that?”

“Emma taught me,” she answers, stepping inside.

“That does against everything her job should stand for.” He follows her in and turns on the light.

Robin rarely sets foot in here. Surprisingly, antiques aren’t her thing. She doesn’t understand why people would spend so much time with old things while there’s so much new stuff out there to discover. Half the stuff in here she can’t even place. She catches sight of the wooden dolls she knows to be Archie’s parents on the table and shivers.

After Rumpelstiltskin died, Belle took over the shop part time, mainly returning things to their owners. Still, there’s enough in here to make a museum. Necklaces hang off stands, swords adorn the walls, coats hang from racks, boxes pile high in a corner, and that’s just the beginning. Some people don’t want to pick up their stuff. Some people are dead and can’t pick their stuff up. In some cases, their children have claimed it for them, in others it’s all just sat in here, being dusted by Belle once a week, some of it being sold after the owner vehemently assures her they won’t use it.

The window display is incredibly easy to get into; there’s no barrier stopping her from getting at it. She hops up onto it, pushing away a mannequin wearing a ballgown and lifts the sheath and bow before jumping back down to the floor.

They’re bigger than she expected, but then again, they were a man’s. She tests it, placing the bow in her left hand and pulling the string back, playing at taking aim. It must be old, but it’s still in good condition. When she releases, the string snaps back into place without a sound.

“Okay, can we go now?” Gideon asks, his voice shaking. Robin looks up at him and tenses when she sees him; his face a good two shades paler, hugging himself tightly. This is far beyond worrying about getting in trouble.

“Sure,” she says, lifting the sheath and placing it on her back. They leave together, Robin not bothering to lock the door. His eyes look scared, his hands balled up in his jacket. “Hey.” She rubs his shoulder. It’s far too tense. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he says. She shakes her head and runs her hand down his arm to grip his shaking hand.

“Pardon my French but that’s crap,” she tells him.

“That whole place reeks of my dad,” he confesses. Stupid, she thinks, stupid Robin. Gideon’s never held his father in high esteem, less so after reading the book. She knows what he thinks of him, and what Gideon thinks that makes him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you go in there,” she tells him. He shakes his head.

“It’s fine.” His trembling voice tells her it’s the opposite but she doesn’t press, though she does worry that his pale face and shaky voice might hint at his lunch being thrown up on Main Street. She slides her hand into his and laces their fingers together. She squeezes his hand gently and he holds hers tighter. “Thank you.”

They see the rest of their friends as little toy-sized people on the street, standing in the cluster. Robin feels guilt twinge in her gut, even more so when Gideon groans. She can handle trouble, she’s gotten herself into her fair share of it, Gideon less so. Henry turns to the rest of the group and they start coming towards them, meeting them half way, Henry more in front.

“Where were you two?” he asks, his voice louder and angrier than either Robin or Gideon had heard it before.

“We were-”

“It was my fault,” Robin says. “I wanted to grab something.” She wiggles the bow in her hand, drawing their attention. “And I got Gideon involved.” Henry bows his head, his hands on his hips, and lets out a long sigh.

“Look, Robin-” He shakes his head. “This isn’t a game. This is serious. I need to know where you guys are.” Robin and Gideon exchange a guilty look before looking at the ground.

“I’m sorry, Henry,” Robin says.

“Really,” Gideon adds, though Robin squeezes his hand. It wasn’t his fault. Henry’s frown melts away and he bows his head, his shoulders dropping as he rubs the back of his neck. Robin can just about make out the small smile on his face.

“Thank you,” he says. He eyes the bow in Robin’s hand and the sheath on her shoulder. “Nice weapon choice.” She shrugs. He opens his mouth as if to say something else but closes it. He nods his head in the direction of the rest and they follow him. Their friends crowd around them, Alex on her side and Lucas on Gideon’s, and Robin and Gideon drop each other’s hands.

“You okay, babe?” Lucas asks Gideon, running a concerned hand up his arm and tracing his fingers along his pale cheek.

“Yeah,” he says, taking Lucas’ hand in his, stopping him from checking him more. “Just tired.” Lucas nods, not convinced, but he kisses his shoulder.

“So,” Alex says, drawing Robin’s attention away from them. “Bow and arrows?”

“Yeah,” she answers, not sure what else to say. “I mean, you were right. We have to suit up.” Her hand tightens on the bow, her thumb running along the dark wood. Holding onto it means Alex can’t hold her hand, and she’s settling for placing her hand across her back and on her shoulder, but there’s tension in it, unspoken words. “What?”

“What?”

“You’re holding something back,” Robin tells her. “There’s something on your mind.”

“No there’s not,” Alex says casually, not looking at her.

“Lex,” she tells her. “Do not bullshit me.”

“Fine…” she sighs. “I guess…. I told you so…”

“Excuse you?” Robin says, raising her eyebrows. Alex shrugs, scrunching her face up in guilt.

“You did question me bringing this,” she gestures to her rifle, sitting on her shoulder. “I know, I’m sorry.” She kisses Robin’s cheek to make up for it, and it works.

They file into the library, Henry running around switching on lights. Robin drops her bag under a window and strolls around. She’s been in here often enough, as anyone else in the town has. It’s as close to the perfect base as they will get in their situation. She cranes her neck and looks up at the ceiling, above which is the clock tower, and the mines below them.

Alex taps her shoulder and brings her over to the table, where Henry has the book open out on the front desk. Hope stands next to him, on her toes, grabbing the desk to keep her balance. Robin leans next to her, her elbow on the desk, her ankles crossed, while Gideon and Philip stand behind the desk. Henry flips through the book, every page covered with careful script and illustrations of their parents. Not her mom, though, she doesn’t come in until much later. He’s busy looking through Snow White and Emma’s story, long before any of them came into being.

He keeps flipping through the pages until he finds what he was looking for; the page where Snow fights off an ogre. She doesn’t bother looking at the words, but there’s a picture of Snow standing with her bow and arrow, feet planting, a protective snarl on her face just before she lets the arrow fly. In other circumstances, she might be studying the picture and scanning through the words, especially considering her new found weapon, but that’s not what holds her attention.

“Holy-” Philip breaths. Normally, the page is pale white and tinged with a golden hue, but it’s darker now, not to mention crumpled, and the edges of the page are black and cracked and broken, a dark brown shade emitting from the blackness. Henry runs his hand over it, his breathing getting faster.

“It’s, it’s warm,” he says, bewildered. “How can it….” He flips through more pages, all of which are pristine, white perfection. Like someone took the page out, burned it around the edge, and put it back in the book seamlessly. He flips far forward until he reaches the page showing the ice wall going up around the town. In the same way the other page was, its normal white is darkened and the edge of the page is torn and black. He doesn’t need to tell them it’s warm as well, the look of shock in his eyes and clenched teeth say everything they need to know. “You were right, Mel.”

“Someone’s using the book to get to us?” Alex asks.

“Maybe they’re getting their inspiration from it,” Hope suggests.

“Typical,” Lucas sighs. “Our first villain and it’s a rip off of the old ones.” They all pause and look up at him, frowning. Really, this should not be his first priority. He shrugs, as if to say, ‘well what else can I say?’. “Just saying, if I ever have to face a villain again, I’d like one who doesn’t plagiarise.”

They all giggle softly, and Robin thanks God she has Lucas at least to, intentionally or not, diffuse the tension.

“But how are they even getting it?” Henry asks, more to himself than anything else. He closes the book and holds it up, looking at the cover. “How does this happen? I had the book in my bag when the ice wall went up.”

They don’t know, of course.

“Oh my-” Henry gasps, dropping the book. He shakes his hand frantically. “It’s hot! It’s- I think it’s burning!”

They step back form the book, eyes wide even though it lies dormant. Then, wisps of smoke begin rising from it and it starts to shake.

“That’s not normal,” Hope states, Robin takes her and pulls her against her, wrapping a protective arm around her chest.

“Does this mean something else is coming?” Melody asks from where she stands behind Henry. The shaking gets worse; the book doesn’t seem to be touching the floor as small wisps of black smoke starts rising from it. Nothing else happens; the rest of the world stays calm and still, just that book trembling and burning.

It doesn’t slow down; it simply stops shaking, dropping to the ground with a thud that echoes around the room, the smoke fading away into the air. Robin holds Hope tighter as her hands shake, her heart in her mouth. The room falls deathly quiet, so quiet they would be able to hear a pin drop. She wants to ask if that was it and nothing else will happen now, but she’s not a fool and she also doesn’t want to jinx it.

An ear splitting shriek comes from outside, tearing at her ears and making her stomach churn. It wasn’t human, whatever it was. It’s high pitched, guttural and unhinged, never stopping. More come in, overlapping, some coming out in short bursts and some being drawn out until whatever it is runs out of breath. And whatever it is, it has strong lungs. The noise feels like it’s clawing at the walls of the library, trying to break it down. As the shrieks keep going on, they hear something else, something sounding like wings beating and fists pounding the pavement.

It’s when one of… whatever they are hits the wall of the library that they burst apart. Robin turns towards the window involuntarily, her heart pounding as she sees exactly what is waiting outside.

At first, she can only register the bared white, seemingly razor sharp teeth and the glowing red beady eyes, seeming to zone right in on her. It’s only when she’s able to tear her gaze away from those features that she can focus on everything else; the brown face twisted into a snarl and sunken in nose, thick matted grey fur surrounding it. Its face is the only thing that can fit in the window, but it’s enough to make poor Melody behind her scream and clutch Henry tighter.

“What the hell?” Gideon pants. “What is that?”

“Whatever it is, it has friends,” Alex reminds them, raising her voice over the chorus of deadly shrieks.

At the door, they hear something banging against it, metal being shoved against metal.

“Are they breaking in?” Hope asks, her voice trembling. Robin frowns. There’s no indents on the door and it’s not shaking. Pieces begin to click together in her mind.

“I think something different.” She runs over to the door and shoves it hard. It only budges slightly, letting in a tiny stream of daylight before being closed again with another cry. “They’re barricading us in.”

“Then… what do we do?” Melody asks. They look around, the door continuing to be heavily pounded against. God knows what they were doing out there, but it was working. She’s pretty certain that not even their combined strengths could move that door.

“Here,” Gideon says, running to the elevator and opening it. None of them know what he’s thinking, but she trusts him with this. “If you brought weapons, grab them and let’s go.” He looks nervously at Melody, who doesn’t even own anything. But her little gentle face is hard, her brown eyes alight, and if he was going to tell her to stay behind, it dies on his tongue. Robin never put the bow and arrows down since she picked them up, nearly forgetting about their presence altogether. They file into the elevator, Henry managing a brief head count, before Gideon pulls the leaver and it takes them down into the mines.

“What now?” Philip asks as they step out into the dank tunnels. The cries of the creatures are muffled by the layers of earth and tarmac above them.

“I’ve looked at the town plans,” Gideon explains, leading them through the tunnels. “The library isn’t the only way into and out of the mines. There’s one that takes us right up to Main Street just about… here.”

He stops at a grey ladder, looking slightly rusty, that sits under a manhole.

“Right up into the heat of the action,” Henry says, looking at it like it’s a live bomb. “Okay. Just let me go first.” When he moves to the ladder, Hope is right beside him, clutching the hilt of the sword on her waist.

When they file out onto Main Street, they don’t have to go far before the creatures find them. They don’t know if they can smell blood or were expecting them and they don’t feel like finding out.

Up close, they make Robin’s stomach feel like it’s dropped out of her body and her blood feel like it’s turned to ice. They tower over all of them, grey course fur everywhere, even on their thin, crouched legs on their hands, which have claws which could no doubt tear their throats out, and on the massive wings which sprout out from their backs.

Flying monkeys. Her mom’s old minions.

Not her mom’s ones. Fake ones conjured from a book. But the same ones she used when she first rolled up to Storybrooke.

“Don’t let them bite you,” she calls out as they begin descending upon them, her voice fighting to be heard over the howls and squawks. Trembling, she notches an arrow, trying to remember what she saw Snow demonstrate, but that was long ago and her mind is racing and tears are beginning to blur her vision. She notches one on the bow, but it only travels feebly and clutters to the ground without getting near one.

“Hey!” a voice calls out, and it takes her a moment to realise it’s Philip. “Hey you big furry dumbasses! You want some? Come get it!” She sees him run down the street, defenceless, and the monkeys follow him.

“You want him?” another voice asks, higher, younger. Melody. “I’m over here, idiots!” She runs off in another direction, sending others after her.

Robin takes off in Philip’s direction, planting her feet firmly, hoping she’s the same way Snow was in the book. She slides an arrow into the bow, keeping one eye on Philip. He keeps running, changing direction. Those monkeys might be scary, but they’re not smart. All she needs is for him to keep them distracted until she can make a shot.

Creeping closer, she pulls the arrow back, says a prayer, and lets it fly. With time not on her side, she does the same with another without checking the damage done with the first one. A third, fourth, fifth fly from her bow, and she hears pain filled wails that can only be good.

When she dares to look, she sees them writhing on the ground, Philip panting and laughing, moving delicately around them.

“Nice work,” he tells her. “Didn’t know you did archery.”

“I didn’t,” she replies. She looks worryingly at the monkeys on the ground. They’re still alive, but there’s more to deal with.

“I’ll finish these ones off,” he tells her. She nods and runs up the street again. She sees Hope shooting them down with her magic, Lucas and Henry waiting until they’re low down enough before they slash at them with their swords. Gideon and Melody seem to be acting as diversions, their drawing them down to Lucas and Henry or away from anyone else.

She doesn’t see Alex and her heart nearly stops.

She tries to put that out of her mind, trusting Alex, and aims for the heart of one of them. It catches in the leg instead, but Lucas plunges his sword into its chest when it hits the ground.

When she gets closer, she sees Alex, further up from the rest, grimacing, struggling to hold the rifle, sitting up on one knee. Her eyes move behind her girlfriend towards the creature behind her. It stalks slowly behind her, its jaw unhinging, revealing the rows of pointed fangs, saliva dripping off them, the red eyes glinting as it focussed on her.

“Alex!” Without thinking, the arrow was in her bow, and not even a second later it was soaring through the air, cutting through the wind and landing directly in its chest. It hits the ground fiercely, shaking the street and the buildings around it, the sound echoing in Robin’s head. “Alex!” She runs over to her, her heart nearly stopping when she sees the rip in her jeans, exposing glistening blood on her knee.

“I’m fine,” she says. Up close, Robin can see her arms shaking holding the gun. “Just a cut.” Alex turns and looks over at the fallen money behind her, which is groaning softly, taking long, pained breaths. “Nice shot. You saved me.”

“Yeah,” she says, though she isn’t paying much attention. The sounds of screaming, both human and monkey, have died down completely, leaving the streets devoid of any sound aside from the monkey’s laboured breaths. Their dying breaths, she realises. Keeping one hand on Alex’s back, she looks around the street. There’s no place she can look where there isn’t a fallen flying monkey. Her friends are still there, putting their weapons back in their sheaths and looking around at each other. They might be having a conversation, but all Robin can see is the monkeys littering the street. She suddenly becomes very aware of the bow in her hand and the arrows against her back, many of which are sticking out of monkey corpses.

The irony isn’t lost on her; the monkeys were her mom’s; the bow and arrow was her dad’s. She wonders if this was set up by whoever was doing this to them. And despite the unsettling feeling growing in her stomach and the ringing in her head, she feels something else. Something she can only really describe as wholeness. Like something has finally slotted into place in her life. The two feelings clash inside her, despite the obvious bigger picture she thinks she should be focusing on. She wraps her arm around Alex who, despite her insistence that she’s fine, leans on her for support. Blood is still dripping from her leg and she’s wincing as Robin takes her arm, not to mention the clear upset look on her face when she thinks Robin can’t see.

                                                                                                *****

Lucas’ knees hit the ground hard as he falls, finally letting his exhaustion take over. Sweat mixes in with his hair, leaving it sticky and hard, the cold breeze blowing over his warm body as his heart settles into a normal rate. He lets his grip on his blood-stained sword loosen as it clatters to the pavement. For a while, he lets his mind go white, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, not acknowledging anyone else. Just getting lost in the complete silence and nothingness, welcome after the heat of the battle he just engaged in.

“Lucas!” Hope slides next to him, grabbing his shoulder. She’s out of breath, and her hands and jeans are covered the in the black sludge that was the monkey’s blood. “Luke, you okay?”

“Uh…. I don’t know,” he mutters. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a large black shape and immediately jumps back, pulling his arms around himself. “Shit…”

“Lucas?” Hope asks, her grip tightening. He feels his heart begin to pick up again as the reality sets in. “Lucas, are you okay?” All he can see is dead monkeys are far as the eye can see. Lying on the pavement, still and cold and unmoving.

“We killed them,” he states numbly. “We killed them.”

“Yeah, we did,” she replies, leaning onto him slightly. They sit in silence, listening to the wind blowing as his breathing gets faster and his eyes prickle with tears. He dares to take another look at the dead monkey beside him. It-he? She? They?-died with its mouth open, exposing its fangs. Its eyes are closed, and he remembers the roar it made when he stabbed it, just barely audible above the blood pounding in his ears and the chorus of its friends screaming.

“We killed them,” he simply repeats. He wonders if it felt pain when he stabbed it. When he killed it. He is vaguely aware of his breathing being near frantic now, and that Hope is calling his name and tapping his cheek, and he gives her arm a squeeze to assure her that he’s still there before letting it limply fall back again. When she starts calling for Henry, he knows he should assure her that he’s fine, but he can’t find the words. The only words he can really think are ‘we killed them’.

He doesn’t feel like his parents did after a battle. He’s read in the book about the epic victories, celebrated with banquets with gold cups and roast pigs and plenty of dancing while knights shine their armour and ordinary citizens thank the heroes for saving them. He wouldn’t want any of that. All he wants to do is go to a dark room and lie down until he can stop shaking and feel like a person again.


	5. Chapter 5

Henry isn’t sure who to run to first.

His sister is crouching next to Lucas, calling out Henry’s name with increasing concern. While he can’t see Lucas’s face, the way he’s curled in on himself is enough to make him shake. Robin is helping a struggling Alex to her feet, meanwhile Gideon is taking a look at a gash on Melody’s forehead. Philip stands close to him, looking completely lost in the middle of it all.

“So, what do we do now?” he asks, looking up at Henry. When he looks at him, he realises with painful clarity how young he is. He may be one of the oldest in his grade and may be turning seventeen in just over a month (older than Lucas by a day and proud of hell of that fact) but he’s a kid. And right now his young face is splattered with yellow monkey saliva and sticky, thick black blood and clouded in confusion.

“Um, I don’t know,” he says honestly. “We should get inside, regroup. Go spread the word. And see if Alex needs help, she’s not looking great. I’ll see what’s wrong with Lucas.” Philip nods shakily, running a hand through his black hair. His jacket has a long, angry looking slash along the back, but other than that he seems to have gotten away relatively unscathed. Physically at least. His eyes are wild and he pulls his sleeves over his hands. He pushes the slightly too long hair out of his eyes and squeezes his shoulder tight, trying to give him some reassurance before they go their separate ways.

When he runs over to Lucas and Hope, he finds that Lucas looks even worse. Hope looks up at Henry, shrugging. Lucas is staring right ahead and when Henry crouches next to him, he sees that he’s trembling, and his face is chalk white.

Henry swallows the lump in his throat. It’s not like he’s never seen someone like this, not when his grandma and step dad has had PTSD since he was a teenager and his mom has had rough days more times than he’s cared to remember. Ever since Rumpelstiltskin died, he’s watched Belle go into states similar to Lucas’, her mental state a twisting path. Even his grandpa, with his all sunlight demeanour, has had days where the past catches up with him and leaves him sitting in the corner of his room. Hell, his less than perfect childhood and teenage years meant he had made himself comfortable on Archie’s couch until he left for college. But he was never face to face with it. Pulled out of the room when Killian was in the middle of a panic attack or already in bed when Emma was finally able to break down and then book a session with Archie the next day. There’s something unnerving about seeing it up close, and even more so on Lucas. Like Philip, he’s just a kid, who’s facing the world way too early, but he’s also not used to seeing Lucas doing anything other than laughing and joking, winding people up, making puns and pulling pranks. Sometimes he wondered if Lucas even had emotions like fear or sadness or grief.

Well, at least that’s cleared up.

“Luke?” he whispers softly.

“We killed them,” he states flatly. Henry follows his uncle’s eyeline and sees the dead flying monkey close to them. They were terrifying when they were alive and flying and screeching and trying to take chomps out of them with their fangs, but dead, he can’t decide which is more unnerving. It looks like something from a museum, only not pristine and preserved. The blood forms clumps around the fatal wound and saliva still bubbles from its mouth, its once blood-red eyes fading to a dull orange.

“I know, kid,” he says softly, putting his hand on his back. “Hey, can you take my hand? I need you to take my hand, buddy.” He offers Lucas his hand, brushing it against his, which is curled into a tight fist. “It’s okay, Lucas. We’re going to get you back to the library, cleaned up, sitting down on an actual chair, okay? Just get you away from all of this. Okay?” After a pause, Lucas nods slightly and wraps his shaking hand around Henry’s. “Okay there we go, we’re going stand up now, okay? I’m here and Hope’s behind you. We’ve got you.” He and Hope share a brief nod over Lucas’ head before pulling him to his feet. He tries to stand up, but he ends up sagging against Henry, his head colliding with his chest. “Okay, kid. We’re going to go back to the library, okay?” He only nods again, holding Henry’s hand tighter as he begins to cry. Hope looks up at Henry, green eyes wide.

“Hope, go see if Gideon and Melody are okay,” he tells her. “Phil’s checking on Alex and Robin. Just get back inside quick.”

“Yeah, okay,” she whispers, running off to her friends, red hair flying behind her.

When they get back to the library, the first thing Henry does is set Lucas down in one of the chair and kneels in front of him, taking his shaking hands. He seems to have come back to reality a bit, more clarity in his green eyes, identical to his mother’s, sister’s and niece’s. The others file in behind them, voices overlapping, concerned, scared exhausted. Much as Henry loves each one of them, he wishes for a moment they weren’t there. Or more accurately, there was more of him.

“You okay now, kid?” he asks gently.

“Yeah… no,” he answers. “I don’t know it’s just… we killed them!” His voice gets louder and higher, his fists curling and pounding against the chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gideon coming towards them.

“I know, I know,” he says. He turns around for a second. “Gideon I know you’re trying to help but I need you to just stay back there for bit.” Gideon stops, but nods and disappears down the room. Henry focuses back on Lucas, whose face is twisted in anger and bright red, tears making their way down his face. “Luke, Luke just look at me for a minute.”

“We killed them,” he states again. “Heroes don’t kill, that’s what Mom and Dad always say.” Henry holds his arm and Lucas grabs his shoulders in response.

“The first thing we’re going to do is focus on your breathing, Luke,” he tells him. “In and out. Slow. Deep, okay kid?” Lucas shakes his head, blond hair flying.

“No, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” he tells him. “Come on with me, in for five, out for five.” It takes a while, but Lucas begins to copy his breathing and the redness fades from his face. “There we go buddy. In and out. In and out, you got it. Just breath. Keeping breathing.”

“Where did you?” he asks before breathing in and out. “Learn this?”

“Our family’s been through a lot,” he explains, deciding to leave it at that. “You good now?”

“I think so,” he confesses. He relaxes into the chair, letting out a long breath, but fumbles for and grabs Henry’s hands. “Oh God.”

“Now,” he begins now that his uncle has (sort of) calmed down. “What’s wrong.”

“We-we killed them,” he stammers, squeezing his eyes shut. “I killed them. I killed so many of them. Heroes don’t kill, that’s what my parents always said, but we killed them. I killed so many of them.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Henry says softly, rubbing his back. He’s never seen Lucas like this, his face contorted and red and streaked with tears, struggling to keep the rhythmic breathing they had built up. He’s too young to deal with this. But then again, he’s not much older than he had been when he was fighting his way out of an alternate reality. Still, he had never killed anyone. Just been behind the people who did. “Lucas… That’s a good sentiment. It really is, but it’s crap.” Lucas’ tear-filled eyes meet his. “Kid, your parents have killed people too.” Lucas winces and Henry wishes he could take the words back. Does Lucas not know? Hope and Robin know about what their parents have done. But his grandparents, much as he loves them, have always been less willing to share their pasts, or even acknowledge its existence. “Luke-”

“I know,” he whispers. “But that was different. They were bad guys.”

“And flying monkeys aren’t?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “What if the weren’t? What if they were just following orders?”

“Lucas, they attacked us,” he reminds him. “Your sister, your parents, they all fought flying monkeys back in the day, and it was to protect themselves and everyone else. And that’s what you did today. It was you or them. Hell, it was us or them.” Lucas shakes his head and Henry takes his chin in his hand. He wracks his brain for something to say. He can’t tell him not to feel guilt, he’d be a monster to say that. “Lucas, sometimes, heroes have to do the hard thing to protect people. It doesn’t make them less of a hero. You’re still good, Lucas.” He sits still as a statue, the tears drying onto his cheeks, his hair messy and spiked from where he’s ran his fingers through it and pulled on it. “I need you to say something. Tell me you understand, at least.”

“I understand,” he whispers after a long while. Henry pulls him into a hug. He wants to tell him again that he’s still a hero, or that he’s still good at least, but he knows he shouldn’t labour the point. The longer he goes on, the less Lucas will believe it.

“We did what we had to do,” he reminds him instead. “If I go check on everyone else will you be okay?” Lucas nods against his shoulder. “Promise?”

“Yeah,” he says tightly.

“You just sit here,” he tells him. “Take a break, you need it.” Henry stands and looks at Lucas curling in on himself on the chair, tucking his knees under his chin. He looks so much younger than he is, and so different without a smirk or a tell-tale mischievous sparkle in his eye it’s chilling.

“Hey.” As he enters the main foyer of the library, where the rest are gathered, he takes Gideon by the shoulder. “He might need you right now.” Gideon nods and disappears around the corner to where his boyfriend is sitting, hopefully ready to find some comfort in Gideon’s arms.

He looks around at the rest of them. It’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop, save for Alex’s laboured breathing. She’s sitting against the front desk while Robin crouches next to her, and the scarlet blood on her knee is hard to ignore.

“Henry,” Robin says. He comes over and sits on Alex’s other side. Up close, he’s relieved to see that the cut on her leg is nowhere near as bad as it looks. Still pretty nasty, but he can deal with it. “She got hurt outside. She said some monkey got the drop on her.”

“I can talk, you know,” Alex says, but there’s too much fondness in her voice for it to be ill-intended. “Just a cut.”

“Not sure it’s just a cut,” he says, and Robin’s eyes go wide. “But we can deal with it. Let me just… Gideon?” Gideon comes into view within seconds. Either he must have sounded more afraid than he intended, or Gideon’s still on edge.

“Uh-huh?”

“Does your mom have a first aid kit in here?” he asks.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

“Here,” Philip says, jumping off the windowsill and grimacing. He rummages through his backpack and pulls out a pack of white bandages. “Will these work?”

“Perfect, thanks,” he says. “Now we just need to get to wash this out. Alex, you think you can make it to the bathroom?”

“Of course,” she says. She grabs Robin’s shoulder and makes to stand and immediately cries out in pain. Robin lowers her back down despite her complaints and protests that she’s fine.

“Okay, never mind,” Henry sighs. “It’s fine.”

“Here,” Hope says, suddenly appearing by his side with a packet of tissues and a bottle of water. “It’s not the bathroom, but…”

“Next best thing,” he says, smiling at her gratefully. Soon, Alex’s cut is wiped as best he can with water, and patched up with three bandages, and even then it bleeds through. Her jeans around the cut are stained red, but she smiles.

“Thanks,” she says before turning to Robin and placing an affectionate hand on her cheek. “See, it was nothing.” Robin nods, but remains silent, watching her girlfriend worryingly as she helps her stand. They stay next to the front desk, clutching each other’s hands.

Henry looks over at the rest of them; Hope, Philip and Melody. Selfishly, he hopes they’re all okay and relatively unscathed, either mentally or physically. So far he’s only patched up Lucas and Alex and he’s already exhausted. They look bad, but not worse than the rest of them. All three are pale, dirt and grime and tears and sweat on their faces, and they’re all out of breath even now, and wincing against some kind of pain. But it’s the sight of Hope sagged against the wall that puts fear in his heart.

“How are you three?” he asks.

“Peachy,” Hope sighs, making him chuckle. “My arms feel like they’ve been put through the woodchipper and then stitched together and put back onto my body. And I’m a little…” She waves her hand around lazily, looking for the right word. “Pooped, but I’ll be fine.”

“Magic overuse?” he asks, remembering that morning.

“Exactly,” she says, firing finger guns at him. “Not as bad as this morning, though. Maybe I’m building an immunity. Or whatever.”

“Okay, Cygnet,” he says. “Philip, Melody?”

“I’m fine,” Melody asks, putting on a bright smile. That girl is far too nice for her own good. She could have been stabbed through the heart and still be insisting she’s just fine. Henry takes a good, hard look at her. She’s definitely pale, like everyone else, her skirt is torn, but there seems to be no other sign of physical damage.

“Just rest up, kid,” he tells her, patting her head gently. She apparently doesn’t need to be told twice, pulling her knees against her chest.

“Philip?” he asks. He’s sat himself back on the windowsill, his back against the window and legs dangling lazily, sighing in relief.

“My legs are shredded,” he says honestly. “And I think my heart might have been going at three times the normal rate. But other than that I’m good.”

“Okay,” he says. “Just um… stay here, rest up. Then we….”

It’s then Henry realises a fundamental problem with the book. It told the stories of their parents and grandparents’ great adventures, the swordfights and glass coffins and deals and break in plans that were made, but they rarely show the in between stages. How they got from the swordfights to the coffins, or what they did on Neverland in between Lost Boy raids and attacks on Pan’s camp. He guesses they’d have made for a pretty boring story.

“Um, you know…. We…” He scratches the back of his neck whilst the three of them look on, Hope with raised eyebrows that is the double of their mother. An unspoken communication passes between them, Hope letting him know she sees right through him, and so does everyone else, and then letting him know that it’s okay. “We think of something. Try to work this out.”

Hope pushes herself off the wall and approaches him. They angle themselves away from Philip and Melody and distance themselves from them. Henry places a hand on Hope’s back, still feeling the irrational fear that she’ll pass out on him.

“You’re definitely okay?” he asks her.

“Are you?” she asks, folding her arms. He chuckles at her stance; she looks so much like their mum in that pose. She looks up at him, her chin jutting in the air.

“Of course I am,” he tells her. He’s as fine as any of them could be anyway. They’re all confused, upset, scared, but that doesn’t need saying, especially not from him. He pushes her hair away from her face, poking her cheek gently. “Don’t worry about me, kid.”

The corner of Hope’s mouth quirks into a smirk, her head shaking ever so slightly.

“I’ll always worry about you,” she says. Her tone, her words, they surprise him. Hope’s always been a funny kid; mentally ranging between two years younger or fifty years older, but that was always for fun, a little joke that would give them all a chuckle and she’d run off and act fifteen again. Now, well, she sounds too much like an adult.

“Well, don’t,” he says softly. “Not your job to worry Hope, it’s mine.”

“Then what’s my job?” she asks seriously. He looks back at her friends; Melody has her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them but is talking with Philip while he sits on the windowsill. They can’t hear them.

“Maybe make a move with Melody?” Her cheeks go pink, a small squeak escaping her, and she smacks his arm, eyes darting quickly back to Melody and him again.

“I don’t…. you can’t…. we’re not….” She stammers, desperately searching for the right words. Henry laughs and pulls her close, kissing the top of her head gently.

“Go hang with your friends, kid,” he tells her.

“What are you going to do?” she asks. “Given that all your friends are either in LA, or…” He nods when she doesn’t finish her sentence. Gretel, Hansel, Grace, Violet, all his friends from Storybrooke were born in the Enchanted Forest, and as a result are in the same state his parents are. He kicks himself for not at least checking on them.

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “Maybe start looking through some books. There’s a load of magic history books here, maybe something can help us.” Hope opens her mouth, moving forward a little, her eyes sparkling, and he can tell what she’s about to say before she can get a word out. He holds up a hand to silence her. “No, Cygnet. Go hang out with your friends and fail at talking to your crush.”

“But I want to help!” she protests, ignoring the part about her so-called “crush” altogether.

“I know you do,” he sighs. “But you’ve been through a lot today. Just take a minute, okay? Relax.” She narrows her green eyes at him, pursuing her lips.

“One condition,” she says, holding up one finger to emphasise her point. She then jabs her finger into his chest, one hand on her hip. “You take the night off too.” Henry shakes his head, laughing. “I’m serious. You’ve had a long day too. You’ve done as much as any of us.”

“Okay, okay,” he sighs. “Okay, you have a deal, Hope.” She smiles and takes his hand pulling him back towards her friends.

He worries, of course. Not just about her, but about all of them. On the one hand, he feels like he should ask them how they’re holding up because they’re just teenagers, but on the other hand…. They’re teenagers.  He remembers enough about his teenage years to know when to leave well enough alone. Sitting on the floor, he looks up, still listening to Melody making small talk about her violin practice and Hope ask any questions she can. He guesses Gideon and Lucas are sitting in that same armchair, and he can only hope that Lucas is okay, while Alex and Robin are probably together doing who knows what.

He presses his thumb into his hand. It’s hardly dark outside, but it’s not like there’s a lot else for them to do. But boredom leads to being alone with their own thoughts which leads to thinking about that morning which leads to… well he’d rather they didn’t think about that morning in any regard. Which means he needs to somehow keep them (and if he’s honest, himself) occupied.

As he looks up to the upper floors of the library, he begins to remember a day a few year ago, Gideon must have been 10 or 11, when he was home for a few weeks and helping Belle move stuff around; she had been meaning to get around to renovations and reorganisations in the library for a while. It had been weird for him, moving around the shelves he’d walked through since he was a kid and taking up boxes of books and games to the upper floors, Belle swearing no one played with them or read them anymore. They were mostly either relics from the Enchanted Forest or an even further place, the 1980s. His generation apparently hadn’t bothered to look at them, but maybe this generation could.

                                                                                                       *****

Alex winces as she settles onto one of the couches Belle set up around the library, despite her insistences that she’s fine, in fact that she barely feels anything. Her fingers graze the bandage in her knee.

“This better leave a cool scar,” she declares and Robin snorts. “I’ll look like a badass. Tell people I got it fighting off flying monkeys.”

“You’re a total badass,” Robin tells her. Ever since she was a freshman, Alex had been the scariest girl she’d ever known. Especially with her indigo streak, ripped jeans, beanies and sneakers under princess dresses when her mum could force her to wear one. It took her no time at all to fall for her.

Alex smiles, but it barely meets her eyes.

“Thanks,” she mumbles. She shrugs, but her eyes go wide quickly, and her hand flies to her shoulder.

“Alex?” she says, feeling panic swirling in her stomach.

“I’m fine,” she says, breathing slowly and deeply. “Just… I think I fired the gun wrong.” She gestures to the rifle lying on the floor beside them. “I remember it… it rammed into my shoulder.” She chuckles lowly. “Hurt like hell.” Robin nods, rubbing her thumb in circles on her shoulder. “Guess you were right, Rob. Shouldn’t have tried to use it. So much for badass.”

“What?” she asks, caught off guard. Alex rarely ever admits that she was wrong. But also, the bitterness in her tone, the pained smile is what catches her attention. She takes Alex’s chin, mindful of her shoulder, and turns it towards her, making her look her in the eye. “Alex, what are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” she says, gently pulling her hand off her face and turning her head away. “Just forget I said anything.”

“No,” she says, turning her face back to her again. “Alex, what’s wrong.” Alex takes in a deep breath, rubbing her thumb along the back of Robin’s hand.

“Just… out there, I thought this was it. This was my hero’s moment. Like when your mom killed Hades. I thought I was going to go out there, shoot some monkeys. Kick ass,” she explains. “Instead, you know what happened?” Robin shakes her head, but she thinks she can guess, and it hurts her heart. “I went out there, fired the gun and missed. Again and again. The ass I was kicking was my own. The damn gun kept hitting me in the shoulder and it hurt. Then one nearly got me and that’s how I got this.” She gestures to the ugly looking cut on her leg. “I was weak, Robin! I thought I was going to be a badass like my mom, like your mom, like everyone’s parents, and I nearly died. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d have been monkey chow.” She shakes her head, loose blonde strands flying. “And it’s not that I wasn’t happy you were there, and that you weren’t really hot firing those arrows. But I don’t want to need to be rescued, Robin. I don’t want to be weak.”

“Alex,” Robin says, cupping her cheek with her hand, making her look at her. The look in her girlfriend’s eyes, lost and defeated and crushed, is so new to her it’s painful. “You’re the toughest person I know.” Alex shakes her head, not meeting her eyes, but Robin won’t give up on her. Not until she sees the smile that makes her insides melt. “Alex, what made my mom a badass wasn’t that she killed Hades. It’s that she was brave enough to stand up for herself and protect my aunt. And my dad. That’s what makes everyone we know so tough. Emma’s tough made sacrifices for her family. Your mom didn’t need a shotgun when she stood up to your step grandma. Or when she got her happy ending.” Alex smiles softly against Robin’s palm, her fingers curling around her wrist. “And you’ve been tough and strong and kick ass since grade school. And you never needed a gun for that. You’re brave, and say what you’re thinking and you scare the hell out of-”

Robin squeaks in surprise when Alex kisses her before melting into her embrace, giggling against her lips.

“What was that for?” she asks, panting slightly when Alex pulls away. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“To say thank you,” she answers. “And to get you to stop babbling.”

“Remind me to babble more often,” she says, and Alex laughs, dimples forming in her cheeks and Robin pokes one of them gently. There’s the smile she fell in love with.

Robin gets up to go to the bathroom, Alex squeezing her hand just before she goes. Briefly, she thinks about how funny it is; the storybooks never show the mundane or even gross parts, like peeing in between battles. The closest she ever got to that discussion was her asking Emma what she did when she got her period in Neverland or the Underworld, to which Emma had laughed and replied “tmi”.

When she comes out of the bathroom, Henry is standing awkwardly outside, holding her bow and quiver. The way he’s holding it pains her; she knows very little about bow-maintenance but she feels like the way he’s holding it is sure to mess up the string.

“You left this at the front desk,” he says, holding them over to her. “Figured you might want to keep them close.”

“Oh, yeah,” she replies, taking them from him. She pulls the leather strap of the quiver across her body and holds the bow by her side, her hand wrapped around the centre. Henry looks her up and down, a small smile playing on his lips, and he huffs out a near-silent laugh. “What?”

“No, nothing,” he says, shaking his head.

“That’s not nothing,” she tells him. She pokes him gently but seriously with the edge of her bow. “What is it?”

“Well,” he begins and she sees the smile drop a little. “Just, you with the bow and arrows and seeing you out there… you look a lot like your dad, I guess.”

Robin steps back, shocked. That was the last thing she was expecting Henry, or anyone, to say to her. The subject of her dad is touchy for her mum, and as of last year, she now knows the reason why. Her Aunt Regina told her bits and pieces of what he was like, but she knows it’s not a subject she likes to get into without a little bit of alcohol in her. And then there’s her brother who filled her in on as much as he could, every little bit of information from the five years he shared with their father. She gets different versions of her dad depending on who she asked; Aunt Regina gave her the lover side of him, David and Killian gave her the fun drinking buddy and loyal her, Roland gave her the goofy but loving dad side. All pieced together in her mind, forming one whole image of the man her dad was. Or as whole as she could make it. She never felt connected to the man in the photos or from the stories. She saw the family resemblance. She knew that 50% of the DNA in her body was also his.  But she could never see him as her dad.

Until now.

“Really?” is all she can say.

“Yeah,” Henry says, his tone regretful. Until he sees the smile that she can’t fight if she tries on her face. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, not looking at him. “I should go. Alex is going to be wondering what’s taking so long.”

“Okay.” Henry doesn’t sound upset anymore, his head tilts as he looks at her but he’s smiling. She heads back towards Alex and the rest of her friends, the quiver sitting comfortably around her body. She can’t explain how she feels exactly, or why despite the fact that her world seems to be falling apart, she feels like a missing puzzle piece has fallen into place. She pauses and makes a quick detour, running swiftly and quietly down past the shelves to the fairytale section. Hardly anyone ever comes here; any story they want they can get from their parents. Except for her. She scans the shelves, ignoring stories about princesses and princes and fairy godmothers until she spots the one she needs. It has a deep scarlet hard cover with slightly yellowing pages, _Robin Hood_ etched on the front in gold cursive writing.

                                                                                                *****

Lucas doesn’t speak, and it scares the crap out of Gideon. His boyfriend has been the life and soul of any room he walks in to, and it’s why he likes him so much. But instead of the usual sparkle that promised fun and jokes and kisses, his eyes are almost dull and look haunted as he holds onto Gideon’s arms, trying to slow his breathing. He kisses the back of Lucas’ head and it just makes him hold on tighter. Eventually he feels him relax against his body, his breathing becoming less slow and laboured and controlled. The grip on his arm turns slack, his hand trailing down his arm.

“Luke?” he asks softly. “Lucas? Are you asleep?”

“No,” he replies. “Just thinking.”

“About what?” he asks, kissing the back of his head again. Lucas shakes his head, running his hand up and down Gideon’s arms.

“Nothing.” Lucas is like his sister in more ways than either one of them will care to admit. There are all the physical similarities; the blonde waves and green eyes and dimpled chins, but their personalities are so much the same it’s not a wonder they clash just as much as they hug. Stubborn, reckless, brave. And when they get scared, they put up walls. And right now, Gideon’s on the wrong side of Lucas’. And it hurts, he won’t lie. Even if he won’t say it to him either.

“Come on,” he says, rising to his feet, which is easier said than done when his boyfriend takes up half his lap, and pulls Lucas with them. “All our limbs are going to fall asleep if we keep sitting there.” It’s a half hearted excuse, they both know that, but for now, he just wants Lucas off the chair, and he lets him drag him to the main foyer.

There, they find three small piles of boxes on the front desk, two more on the floor and Hope opening another large cardboard box as she sits cross legged on the floor next to Melody. Henry sits behind the front desk with Philip as they inspect one of the boxes.

“What’s all this?” Gideon asks, making them all look up.

“Some games Henry found upstairs,” Hope explains. “This one’s from like, forever ago.”

“1983,” Henry corrects her. “Same year our mom was born.” Hope giggles and checks the instructions on the back of the box.

“Gideon, want to play?” she asks, pulling the board out of the box. It’s startlingly bright plastic with four different coloured hippos sitting on top of it. “That way I can beat you.”

“You cheat,” he says, pulling Lucas over and sitting next to them. He looks at Melody, who kneels next to her, her skirt fanned out around her, and decides to poke the bear, so to speak. “She always cheats. You sure you want to play with her?”

“I don’t cheat!” she snaps, casting a death glare at him before looking at Melody. “I don’t. Anyway, this looks pretty simple. You just need to make your hippo eat the most the little balls as possible.” Lucas snorts a laugh. After seeing him fight, cry and then sit in silence, it’s music to Gideon’s ears.

“Yeah I want my hippo to eat little balls,” he says. Hope rolls her eyes but still giggles. Meanwhile, Melody frowns in confusion.

“Why is that funny?” she asks. Lucas’ mouth falls open as he looks from Hope to Melody. Poor child. Ariel and Eric are the very definition of over protective (not that he can blame them) and it’s left Melody with such a sheltered, innocent outlook.

“It’s not,” Gideon says. “Lucas is just being funny.” Melody nods and giggles politely, but it’s quiet and confused. “I want to be the yellow one.”

Before long, any sound in the library is overpowered by the sound of the four of them yelling (well, three, Melody is hardly a yeller) and banging on their little leavers, making the hippos open and close their big plastic mouths. Their noise is enough to draw Alex and Robin out from wherever they were, Alex’s knee stained an angry red and their hands linked.

“What’s going on?” Robin asks. “Who’s killing who?”

“We’re playing Hungry Hungry Hippos,” Hope explains, slightly breathless. “It’s this game from like a century ago.”

“Forty years ago!” Henry corrects her again.

“Hey, want to play this?” Philip asks, mostly directing the question at Robin. He drums his hand on the cardboard box in front of him.

“What is it?” Robin asks, pulling Alex with her as she crosses over to him.

“Uh, Connect 4,” he reads.

“How do I win?” Alex asks, eyeing the game.

“You just have to get four of your little counters in a row in the grid,” he explains, sliding it out of the box.

“Sounds fun,” Alex says, shaking her hands out like she’s stepping up to the boxing ring. “Let’s go.”

Hours pass, and their initial games get abandoned. Henry finds a game called Cluedo and reminisces over the fun he used to have playing it with his friends. At first, the idea of a murder mystery board game confuses Gideon, but once they’re sitting (or lying in some cases) around the board, he find it’s right up his alley. He chooses Professor Plum as his character, maybe feeling a little kinship with the glasses wearing, tweed wearing apparent geek. Hope snuggles next to him, resting her head on his shoulder in between turns. They keep playing until the sky turns dark, Henry running out to the store and putting on bags of chicken nuggets and fries to keep them going. It’s far from the healthy food their parents would be wanting them to have, but it’s easy and quick and their parents aren’t here. Their laughter and shouting when arguments inevitably start (they never last long though) echoing throughout the room and the empty streets. They keep playing and laughing long into the night, their laughter a little too loud and the changing of games a little too fast, until sleep finally comes for them one at a time, each one nodding off at a different time, curled up and draped over each other, pyjamas and sleeping bags entirely forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! As always, comments and kudos are appreciated to feed my muse :)

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo this chapter was very long, likely longer than the rest will be, in order to introduce the kids and their relationships. I've daydreamed about this for a while and now I'm finally putting this baby out into the world and *screams* this is fine.  
> Leave comments if you please to feed the ego and my creative juices.  
> Also to any SQ shippers: I hope the little "Regal Dove" shippers bit isn't upsetting, that's not my intention. It's my way of showing that in this universe, the show has a fandom. Henry loves the Regal Dove fandom


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